Accident & Injury Law in Texas

Posts Tagged ‘malpractice’

Here’s another great article about tort reform myths which was written just after the 2003 tort reform legislation was passed.

Here’s an excerpt:

The purpose of Proposition 12′s severe restrictions on victims’ rights was to lower malpractice insurance premiums, which had seen double-digit increases. In Texas, as elsewhere, the tort reformers exploited the rate hikes as part of a scare campaign to sell reform. However, the facts show that the legal system is not driving insurance rates. Tort actions at the state level – meaning personal-injury lawsuits, everything from product liability to traffic accidents to libel have fallen 5 percent in nine years, according to the National Center for State Courts.

More specifically, malpractice filings declined nationally by about 4 percent between 1995 and 2000. And while a recent analysis of the Medicare population estimated that medical errors kill 131,000 people annually, making it the fourth leading cause of death, medical suits are only 5 percent of personal-injury filings, with product liability cases another 5 percent. Plaintiffs lose 60 percent of product cases and 70 percent of malpractice suits.

Not only are socially significant lawsuits like malpractice and product liability a small fraction of the legal picture but numerous studies show that capping damages doesn’t affect insuance premiums. One survey examined insurance rates between 1985 and 1998, then ranked the states according to the severity of their restrictions on lawsuits. Increased severity did not produce lower rates. In Texas, where malpractice filings dropped 20 percent in the nine years before Proposition 12, the liability picture has been little improved by its passage. About a third of doctors will see a decrease of 12 percent after cumulative increases of 147 percent. The rest will either get no relief or double-digit increases.

According to J. Robert Hunter, Federal Insurance Administrator under Presidents Ford and Carter, caps don’t work because liability rates reflect not litigation costs but the insurance industry’s own practices. During good times, insurers write policies even for the worst risks to generate cash for investment. When the stock market tanks, rates climb steeply to cover losses. The current liability crisis, Hunter notes, coincided with the market downturn that began in the summer of 2001. And since the insurance cycle is international, the “hard market” also drove up premiums in Canada, Australia and France. And those countries have totally different legal systems, Hunter says.

…

The numbers show that lawsuits are an insignificant cost both to businesses and to health providers, for whom they represent less than 2 percent of spending. In short, the lawsuit-abuse crisis is a hoax.

The state dental board gives the public “inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data,” about Texas dentists and other dental profes
sionals, a long-standing problem that a state audit released last week says weakens the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners’ ability to police dental professionals.

The report by the State Auditor’s Office notes that unreliable and inaccurate data were recurring themes in the most recent audits — in June 2002 and August 2005 — and could hamper the agency’s ability to make enforcement and licensing decisions.

For the public, inaccurate information means that some dentists the board has disciplined are shown as having clean records on the board’s Web site, the audit says. “This puts the public at risk of receiving services from licensees who have committed repeated violations.”

The board’s site shows only whether a dental professional has been disciplined; a public records request is required to find what the person did and what the penalty was.

Various data the board reports to the state about its licensing and disciplinary actions are inaccurate, the audit said.

That’s despite the, fact that the agency spent $118,000 in 2005 on an automated system, activated in 2007, which was designed to improve accuracy. It didn’t work as expected, the agency said, so now the board has obtained money from the Legislature to buy a $644,000 system to fix the problems, according to the audit.

The audit makes a series of recommendations to strengthen accuracy, including using edit checks and other data verification measures.

Auditors making spot checks of internal records identified three complaint records against dentists that the agency listed as “resolved” even before they were received and five complaints that were closed before an investigation was completed. The agency used five different database systems for licensing and enforcement that have various inherent weaknesses and inconsistencies, the audit said. All had missing, contradictory or incorrect information, the audit said, and the agency on its own stopped using one of them.

The 2005 audit said staff members lacked a system to determine whether disciplined dentists were actually doing what the board ordered, and this week’s audit indicates that the problem persists.

“The Enforcement Division assigned one employee part-time to have sole responsibility for ensuring that board-ordered sanctions are enforced,” the new audit said, saying the person relies on “a reminder note previously placed on an electronic calendar.”

“The Agency intends to manually track the compliance cases until it implements a reliable information system. This process and the use of multiple lists rather than one comprehensive list increases the possibility that cases that need Agency follow-up will not be addressed.”

The audit said the dental board reported unreliable information on eight, or 67 percent, of 12 key performance measures that auditors tested for in fiscal year 2008. State Auditor John Keel said the unreliability rate was “on the high end” of performance problems auditors see. He considered the audit “tough but fair” and said he was pleased the agency acknowledged the report’s accuracy.

During the first quarter of the current budget year, the auditors noted an improvement at the agency, saying it reported reliable results for four, or 57 percent, of seven performance measures.

Becky Murphy’s boss Dr. Russell Boone was found stealing her health insurance number to buy painkillers for a year.  She reported him and was pretty upset that he was put on a probation and continued to practice even after he plead guilty to possession of a controlled substance by fraud.  His attorney is negotiating a settlement with the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners, and Murphy is confused as to why since he committed a felony.

However, the dental board is known for being extremely lax in all their decisions.  For example, Dr. Shephen Durbin who videotaped his female employees getting undressed only received a probate suspension.  The board also gives out probate suspensions to dentists who in other states are having their licenses revoked.

In contrast the Texas Medical Board is more harsh and has suspended 56 doctors in two years.  The dental board usually just gives out fines with few follow ups, and the few follow ups that are made have been found to be flawed enforcement and weak oversight of dental professionals.

Even with the inadequacy of the dental board’s performance, this year they are receiving an extra one million dollars in funding.  Louis Leichter, Boone’s attorney and a frequent defense lawyer for other dentists, believes that Boone’s treatment and suspended probation is fair enough.  Murphy however does not because Boone could end up with a clean record  and she believes that from law enforcement of the dental board the system is skewed to shield doctors.