The American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) issued its 2022/2023 Judicial Hellholes report last month. The annual release documents abuses of the civil justice system in jurisdictions the pro-tort reform group says are among the most unfair and out of balance in the nation. The ATRF is a branch of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), […]

The medical professional liability insurance industry experienced double-digit premium growth in 2021, driven by firmer pricing and a return to pre-pandemic levels of healthcare utilization, but those gains waned last year, according to a new report published by the Medical Professional Liability (MPL) Association. The report examines direct premiums written for physicians and hospitals as […]

The Alaska Supreme Court determined late last year that a 1976 law limiting financial awards in medical liability lawsuits for Alaskans with health insurance is unconstitutional. The statute at issue, AS 09.55.548(b), provided that when a medical malpractice claimant’s losses have already been compensated in part by a collateral source, such as a health insurer, […]

Physicians, nurses and healthcare workers in the state of New York suffered the largest number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed between 2012 and 2022, while those in Wisconsin experienced the fewest filings during the same period, according to a study published online late last year. According to the study, when the numbers were adjusted for […]

The estate of Kathleen Valentini blames her health insurance company Group Health Inc. (GHI) and its utilization review process for her 2020 death from cancer. Attorneys for her estate argued that the insurer’s denial of prior authorization for an MRI constituted medical malpractice, a delay in diagnosis that led to the amputation of her hip, […]

The Supreme Court of North Carolina overturned a 90-year-old state court precedent that protected nurses from civil liability when they were working under a physician’s supervision. The underlying case, Connette v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, involved then three-year-old Amaya Gullatte, who suffered permanent brain damage, cerebral palsy and “profound developmental delay” after undergoing a procedure for […]

Stakeholders in the decades-long battle over California’s noneconomic damages cap for medical liability jury verdicts announced they have reached a compromise between healthcare, legal and consumer advocates on legislation to modernize the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). Signed into law in 1975, MICRA established a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice awards for things like […]

New research from the Physicians Advocacy Institute (PAI), a nonprofit physician advocacy organization, in conjunction with the healthcare consultancy Avalere Health, indicates almost three quarters (73.9%) of all U.S. physicians were employed by a hospital, health system or other corporate entity as of Jan. 1, 2022,  up from 69% at the same point last year. […]

AM Best maintained its negative outlook for the U.S. medical professional liability (MPL) insurance segment in 2022. In a Market Segment Outlook published recently, the global credit ratings agency cited the ongoing pressures of a depressed demand, rising loss cost trends, an increase in high-severity claims, social inflation and diminishing reserve redundancies as justification for continued […]