High insurance hurts practices, MDs say

Large group in Nashville advocates limits on jury awards

By Richard Locker for The Commercial Appeal
January 22, 2005

NASHVILLE -- Doctor after doctor, many from Memphis, took turns at the microphones at a "Town Hall Meeting" of physicians here Friday to describe problems they or colleagues have with medical malpractice and the insurance that covers it.

The daylong meeting at the Nashville Convention Center attracted 450 doctors from across the state and was hosted by the Tennessee Medical Association as it launches another year of efforts in the state legislature to cut or slow the increase in malpractice insurance premiums.

The centerpiece of the TMA effort is capping awards for pain and suffering -- so-called non-economic damages in malpractice lawsuits -- at $250,000. It will also seek to place plaintiffs lawyers' fees on a scale that reduces their share as awards increase.

State Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, said passage of the bill that he will file on TMA's behalf will take time and may not occur this year. Norris and the co-sponsor in the House, Rep. Doug Overbey, R-Maryville, briefed the group on the political hurdles that "med-mal," as the issue is nicknamed, will face and on how to lobby their lawmakers more effectively.

Nearly 200 doctors from Memphis attended, many coming on three buses chartered by the Memphis Medical Society.

Dr. Jeffrey Woodside, chief medical officer of the UT Medical Group in Memphis, said malpractice insurance premiums for his group's 325 physicians jumped from $1.8 million in 2000 to $4.55 million last year.

That has a huge impact, he said, on the group's ability to support the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, where most of its members also work as professors, and to recruit new faculty.

Dr. Charles Womack of Cookeville said a colleague just retired from his obstetrics practice at age 54 because his premiums jumped to $77,000 but his fees from TennCare, covering 70 percent of his patients, had increased only slightly.

Dr. Stephen Shiffman of Memphis said that a significant number of malpractice lawsuits are filed in cases in which doctors acted on the best information they had at the time. "Most of us would not consider that negligence," the legal standard in cases, he said.

Med-mal reform is a nationwide push this year by the American Medical Association and, in Congress, by President Bush's administration. Tennessee is among 24 states listed by the AMA as not in a medical liability "crisis" yet but "showing signs of problems." The AMA lists 20 states as in crisis, including Mississippi and Arkansas. The other six have resolved problems.

Michael Murphy, lobbyist for the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association, which will oppose the push, said doctors should not try to resolve problems with their insurance companies by limiting rights of injured people.

"If there are problems with their insurance company, we are willing to sit down with them and look at solutions. Tennessee does not have runaway juries and our rates are not as high as other states around us," Murphy said.

Contact Nashville Bureau Chief Richard Locker at (615) 255-4923