Massachusetts Medical Society Urges Changes in Medical Liability System

The report, “Restoring Value and Trust in our Health Care System: Achieving Real Medical Liability Reform with an Early Disclosure and Compensation Model,” was prepared for the legislature’s Committee on Health Care Financing by Dr. Peter Smulowitz, an emergency-room physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford. The introduction to the report was written by state Sen. Richard T. Moore, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health Care Financing.

“Dr. Smulowitz’s work makes it clear that the medical liability system in Massachusetts is broken and in need of urgent repair,” said MMS President Dr. B. Dale Magee. “This report urges changes that physicians have been advocating for several years.”

Magee said that research by the MMS over the past six years has demonstrated the impact that medical liability has on physicians and the practice of medicine. “The fear of litigation,” he said, “has contributed to a rise in defensive medicine costing billions annually. Physicians have curtailed services, and patients’ access to care has been reduced.

“Medical malpractice reform will go a long way toward improving the physician practice environment in Massachusetts, improving access to care, and enhancing physician retention and recruitment,” he continued. The report concludes that:

• The implementation of health care reform is certain to increase the demand for physician services, yet the increase in professional liability fees is one of the key factors in driving the state’s perpetual shortage of practicing physicians;
• The current system does not accomplish the task of equitably compensating patients, nor does it make the practice of medicine safer;
• The economic consequences of the current system are “potentially disastrous.” Despite significant costs in pursing or defending a lawsuit, patients keep only about 36 cents of every dollar spent on the system. Plaintiff attorneys’ contingency fees account for 30{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of any settlement or award, and the rest goes to defense expenses and other administrative costs — those who deserve it least,” says the report;
• The system of medical malpractice hinders, rather than assists, efforts at quality improvement and error reduction in medicine;
• The current medical malpractice tort system puts physicians at the mercy of an archaic risk management strategy and at odds with the very patients they are supposed to represent;
• The fundamental malpractice “crisis” is that the system is a significant obstacle to improving patient safety and improving the value inherent in our medical system.