Spark Lit for Tort Reform Talks
Physicians and lawyers look for collaboration
October 21, 2009 -- The White House is pursuing demonstration projects that look at new ways to manage patient safety and medical liability claims. By executive order, President Obama has set aside $25 million for demonstration projects next year.
Concern about the need for tort reform has the ear of Dr. Chuck Hofmann, who intends to challenge his colleagues to take a serious look at this issue when the Oregon Health Policy Board holds its first meeting on Nov. 10.
Although the 2009 legislature refused to include this hotly debated topic in the major health reform measure that created the new policy board, Hofmann is convinced something needs to be done, and is eager to form a subcommittee.
His goal: bring the physicians and trial attorneys together. “We won’t start off discussing caps on non-economic damages,” he said. “But if we could approach the discussion from a patient-centered perspective rather than us versus them.”
There needs to be a way of protecting injured patients and protecting physicians from catastrophic losses. What we have now isn’t working, Hofmann said. “I believe both sides would agree to that.”
He’d like to explore having a re-insurance fund that would subsidize physician losses above certain levels, and consider pre-screening panels and medical courts.
At the same time, the cost of malpractice insurance seems to have cooled down. TheOregon Medical Association recently announced that its CNA Physicians Protection Program will return $1,638,133 to physicians in November. Since the program’s inception in 1971, physicians have received over $55 million.
Also, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and General Accounting Office has concluded that liability costs absorb less than 2 percent of the total healthcare budget.
Oregon has already made a significant investment into exploring tort reform. In 2004, a joint interim task force, under the leadership of former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Jacob Tanzer, released analyzed medical-professional liability insurance in 2004, and spent $100,000 on a study by Pinnacle Actuarial Resources Inc.
For more on the White House project click here.
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