Physicians from across the United States are finding that it is more and more difficult to obtain inexpensive malpractice medical crisis insurance. The premiums have increased by leaps and bounds in the past few years, making it almost impossible to stay covered under a decent malpractice medical crisis insurance policy. The doctors who come under the high-risk category are the emergency medical doctors, obstetricians, surgeons and heart specialists. The plight is sometimes so bad that hospitals have even considered closing down their emergency rooms, obstetrics and other high-risk services.
Malpractice Medical Crisis Insurance Problem Not Recent Development
The malpractice medical crisis insurance issue has been escalating gradually for the last half-decade or so, and now today has reached a point where both availability and affordability have become factors for deep concern. The crisis has been further accentuated by the closure of many insurance carriers in the recent past, leaving the medical practitioners with little or no choice or alternative recourse.
On one hand most states require that all medical practitioners have professional insurance, and on the other hand the cost of that insurance is prohibitively high and/or totally non-existent in the state. The situation is even worse for the physicians who had at any time in the past been sued for malpractice, leaving them wide open for further litigations.
This is why in many states doctors choose not to apply for malpractice insurance and instead work directly under the risk of being sued. However, since they know that if they were sued they would incur heavy losses, they exempt themselves from treating any complicated cases; their unwillingness to "stick their necks out" creates a lot of inconvenience to the common man and would-be patient.
The fact that the claimants can file malpractice suits even when there are out-of-control injuries leaves the medical practitioners and hospitals wide open for litigations, which also directly or indirectly affect the insurer. On the other hand the attorneys point out that without legal system there would be no real checks and balances or motivational factors for medical practitioners to work towards safe medical practice.
The insurers imply that the overall inflation of rates, competitiveness, raise in interest rates and the costs for re-insurance have influenced and promoted the raise in the rates of the malpractice medical crisis insurance. It remains to be seen how and when a solution will be worked out to answer all the questions raised by all the involved parties.