Do Medical Malpractice Damages Caps Really Reduce Premiums for Doctors?

Caps on potential economic damages paid in medical malpractice law suits have become more and more common over the past two decades, with most states enacting some kind of malpractice caps. These caps were instated in the hopes of reducing skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance premiums for doctors, who insisted that rising premiums prevented them from providing medical treatment and care of the highest quality and even drove them out of business.

In addition, doctors in all 50 states have been seeking tort reform that would further limit medical malpractice payouts to litigants. These reforms would stabilize medical malpractice premiums for attorneys while reducing the amount of punitive and non-monetary damages that could be sought by potential medical malpractice victims. But studies have questioned whether medical malpractice damages caps really reduce malpractice insurance premiums for doctors at all.

Who Benefits - Insurers, Doctors or Consumers?

Who is the real beneficiary of medical malpractice tort reform - patients, doctors, or perhaps the insurance industry? A Weiss Ratings white paper published in 2003 indicates that tort reform has failed to address the medical malpractice premium problem at all. This is because, while insurance companies benefit from the reduction in medical malpractice claims spurred on by damages caps, they do not necessarily pass those benefits on to doctors and patients. Due to other pressures, such as declining investment incomes, insurers keep ratcheting up claims despite the actual drop in medical malpractice payouts.

That the benefit is kept in insurers' pockets suggests that it is ultimately the rights of injured workers, not the economic right of physicians to lower premiums, that are endangered by medical malpractice damage caps. Both Maryland and Missouri placed extremely restrictive limits on medical malpractice suits in the mid 1980s, only to experience very large rate hikes in recent years. This trend continues in other states, as well; in fact, medical malpractice costs (as a percentage of total expenditures for health care on the national level) are at an all-time low.

Underreported and Underlitigated

Though insurers and doctors have raised an outcry against the supposed huge number of medical malpractice cases in this country, there are up to 98,000 patients killed per year due to medical malpractice and eight times as many patients are injured as ever file suit for medical malpractice claims. Medical malpractice lawsuits have resulted in safer hospitals, laboratories, and other medical facilities, and force doctors to practice at a higher standard of care.

If you believe you have experienced pain and suffering in relation to a personal injury, you may be entitled to monetary compensation through your personal injury claim. Contact an experienced personal injury attorney who can analyze your case and tell you whether you have a valid claim. You may be able to collect pain and suffering damages on top of lost wages and other forms of compensation; however, keep in mind that a personal injury case that is solely based on perceived pain and suffering will be seen as far weaker and less convincing than one that is founded on a basis of actual, quantifiable injury.