side note: The unpopular reversal of the Illinois medical malpractice reform law has become a hot topic in the upcoming, Nov. 2, Supreme Court retention elections. The Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch has parked a billboard truck in front Kankakee County Courthouse proclaiming the slogan “Good Judges Matter.” This display of dissatisfaction about the courts recent […]

Side note: On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Medical Society released its annual MMS Physician Practice Environment Index,a report on 9 factors in the state that influence the practice environment for physicians. For 16 of the past 18 years, the analysis has shown a decline in this environment – and 2009 was no exception. Of the four […]

Every day at MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com we are asked to explain the different features of the types of med mal policies available. Today, we’d like to discuss one aspect of the claims-made policy. It is the claims-made step rate premium increases from year 1 to year 5 (or maturity). If you are unprepared for these rate increases, […]

Growth is great in your medical practice. Growing pains are not. The agents at MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com place physician liability insurance coverage for new doctors being added to medical practices on an almost daily basis. And, here are three key points that should always be discussed by both parties when going through this transition. 1. Employee versus […]

Dr. Samuel Smith, a psychiatrist in California, contacted me on a recent Monday in a bit of a rush. He was joining a new medical group the following week and they were trying to add him to their group’s medical malpractice insurance policy with their standard carrier. However, the medical malpractice carrier denied him coverage […]

Dr. Randall Floyd called me in a bit of a panic. An addiction medicine specialist in Anchorage, Alaska, he had put off securing a replacement medical malpractice insurance policy for almost a month past the expiration of his previous policy. The medical group he was employed with had changed their corporate structure where they were […]

In June, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jose Rodriguez denied a defense motion to reduce a jury verdict for noneconomic damages from $500,000 to $350,000 because the defense offered to arbitrate the claim, further chipping away at Florida’s tort reform laws that cap noneconomic damages in medical professional liability actions. In 2014, the Florida Supreme Court […]

The Oregon Supreme Court last month invalidated statutory limits on noneconomic damages for personal injury claims. The high court ruled that the cap enacted by the legislature in 1987 violates the legal remedy clause of the Oregon Constitution. The decision affirmed an appeals court’s reversal of a trial court ruling on an award for a […]

A new study of call into question the commonly held belief that Texas’s 2003 tort reform not only lowered medical malpractice insurance premiums, but also attracted an influx of doctors to serve the state’s more rural patients The 2003 Texas tort reforms are legendary in medical malpractice insurance circles. At the heart of the reforms […]