Medical Malpractice Premiums Being Lowered in Michigan

The high cost of medical insurance has been problematic for physicians, surgeons and other medical specialties for years. Because of these costs, Michigan implemented tort reforms, with the hope that it would slow the rate of increase or even decrease premiums for medical providers, thus making medical care less expensive.

In a recent press release, the Michigan State Medical Society announced that the tort reforms which, were enacted in 1993, are working. This decrease should help keep health insurance premiums for individuals and a business from skyrocketing since the expenses paid by their medical providers is being reduced.

The largest medial malpractice insurance organization in the state of Michigan has announced that they are reducing the premiums charged to physicians in Wayne County effective January 1, 2008.

Wayne County includes the City of Detroit and many of Michigan's largest suburbs. Premiums will be reduced between 12 to 25 percent overall, depending on the type of medical practice and claims history.

On average this will equate to a 13 percent reduction in medical malpractice premiums for doctors in Wayne County, Michigan.

Further, American Physicians Assurance Corporation, who is the largest medical malpractice insurance company in Michigan, will also reduce premiums statewide. On average physicans can expect to see their insurance costs lowered by 6.5 percent in 2008.

"Let me put this in perspective. Rates for my specialty, family practice, will go down 14 percent. Nothing in the overhead costs of my practice is going down, except, unbelievably, the cost of my malpractice insurance," said Robert J. Jackson, MD, an Allen Park family physician and a member of the American Physicians Advisory Board.

Jackson said that many physicians who provide high-risk medical services would still benefit from the premium reductions, with obstetricians averaging a 14 percent reduction, and orthopedic surgeons a 25 percent reduction. Jackson commented, "Even neurosurgeons, who perform very high risk procedures, will see a 12 percent cut."

After suffering from years of rising medical malpractice insurance prices, tort reforms were initiated in 1994. The Michigan Supreme Court has made rulings in support of the intent of the legislation, which was designed to allow just compensation for patients who were injured, without letting every person who was upset with their medical care sue their physician for money like it was winning the lottery.

Michigan is one of many states that had enacted medical malpractice tort reform in an effort to rein in the high costs of medical care, and to assure that their citizens would have access to adequate health care and specialty providers.

Source:
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