Dr. Navin Shah

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland: About 2,000 doctors in Maryland went on a protest rally before the State legislature in Annapolis late last month to draw the attention of administration and the public to medical malpractice insurance, which has sky-rocketed in recent months.

The immediate provocation was that a number of specialists in the medical profession got a notice of a 30 percent increase in their malpractice premium even as many are already paying $100,000 per year to be able to practice. Any further increase in premiums could force the doctors to retire, restrict their practice, or move to other States, because they cannot afford the premiums, the protesters said.

The protesters were led by Dr. Navin Shah, president of medical staff of the Doctors Community Hospital and Trustee of the Maryland State Medical Society, and other physicians including Kanu Patel, Bhalbhai Patel, Mustaq Shah, Arvind Mehta and Harbhajan Ajarawat, and their medical staff.

The physicians appealed to lawmakers to carry out reforms to cap awards in order to make premiums affordable. The serious crisis, created by malpractice insurance, has forced some of the 22,000 physicians to retire, slash practice or leave the state as they could not afford the prohibitive premiums, Dr. Navin Shah told News India-Times on Jan 26 Dr. Shah said some of the demands of the protesting physicians were: Immediate changes to the Tort Reform (which governs medical insurance awards/penalties, etc. in the health care industry); a cap on attorney’s fees; reduction in non-economic damages to $350,000 from the present $635,000; “fair and realistic awards” with the amount of awards based not on the gross income but on the take-home pay; and, lastly, payments of the award in installments instead of one lump sum. These measures have successfully decreased the physician’s premiums in other states, Shah added.

Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, who met the physicians, assured them of his warm support. He promised to introduce an appropriate bill to improve the present situation. He requested the doctors to meet with lawmakers to win their support for the reform.

The protesters told the Governor that in the year 2003 alone, the medical malpractice payout in Maryland amounted to $150 million, which has almost doubled in the last two years.

Similarly, the number of awards over a million dollars have also doubled in the last two years, it was pointed out to the Governor. The Maryland hospitals also have suffered a rate hike of 37 percent, costing $30 million more per year. The protesters told the Governor that due to the “outrageous premiums of medical malpractice insurance” in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, about 1,400 doctors were forced out of practice and more than 500 took premature retirement. His urgent intervention was needed to prevent a similar situation in Maryland, they added.

According to Dr. Shah, 67 percent of the claims were dropped or dismissed. Only 20 percent of the cases tried resulted in verdict against the doctors. The jury awards have become more outrageous and unrealistic, almost parallelling the amount offered in a state lottery, he said.