PA doctors to get some relief on insurance from Governor

Some in medical field are skeptical

By TOM KANE

NORTHEASTERN PA — Governor Schweiker is offering doctors relief from the mounting costs of their malpractice insurance.

Some doctors are expecting a 58 to 100 percent increase in the insurance by January 1, 2003, and many are thinking of moving their practices or accepting fewer patients.

Wayne Memorial Hospital’s malpractice insurance, which was $330,000 in 1999, will now rise to $1.5 million in 2003.

	TRR photo by Tom Kane Wayne Memorial Hospital Executive Director David Hoff addressing reporters on November 17. (Click for larger image)

The reason for the malpractice crisis is that juries are giving huge awards to people who have suffered from alleged mistakes by doctors and hospitals.

Schweiker has directed the state’s insurance department to allow doctors to delay for four months a portion of their malpractice premium that they must pay to a catastrophic fund.

This fund is state-administered and covers the part of a malpractice award between $500,000 and $1.2 million and is in addition to payments doctors must make to private insurance company.

The CAT payment will not be due until April 30, 2003.

“I think this a positive move but some of us in the medical community are skeptical that it will change much,” said Wayne Memorial Executive Director David Hoff.

Hoff said it won’t change the amount of money the doctors must pay, it just delays it.

“Hopefully, it will give Governor-elect Ed Rendell time to put some solutions into place although I don’t know what they would be,” Hoff said.

Last week, Rendell announced a task force made up of doctors, lawyers, hospital representatives and others who will look for short-term and long-term solutions to the state’s malpractice problems.

The governor has also directed the Pennsylvania Professional Liability Joint Underwriting Association, the insurer of last resort for some doctors, to make insurance payments every month rather than twice a year, thereby spreading the payments out.

The Women’s Health Care of Northeastern Pennsylvania, which offers obstetric/gynecology services, will sell its offices in Hamlin, Narrowsburg and Carbondale to cut expenses. Their main office in Honesdale will remain open.

“If we start losing patients to other areas like New York or New Jersey, we start losing doctors and if that trend gets worse we may need to lay off staff because the patients aren’t there,” Hoff said.

The hospital employs up to 800 staff.

“To lose large numbers of these workers will have a dire economic affect on this community and this at a time of otherwise promising economic growth,” Hoff said.

Medical officials feel that other relief can come if the state legislature caps malpractice insurance rates by referendum at a general election.

Hardest hit will be obstetrics/gynecology practitioners, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons and general surgeons.

After listening to Governor-elect Ed Rendell’s plan to lower malpractice insurance premiums, several doctors in the Scranton region said they are still moving forward with plans to limit or close their practices, according to an article in The Scranton Times.

“What happens in Scranton will definitely have its effect on residents of Wayne and Sullivan Counties,” said registered nurse Mary Ellen Rodgers of Fremont. “We’re talking about a loss of essential healthcare services.”

“What’s liable to happen is that patients will not have access to care in their area and will have to go elsewhere, usually far away unless something is done about it,” Hoff said.

“Our rates in New York are very high, but we’re not facing the increases that Pennsylvania is facing,” said New York physician Paul Salzberg of Callicoon, NY.

“It doesn’t do any good to put people out of business. They’ve got to find a way to solve it.”