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Doctors to lobby Assembly

Fredericksburg-area doctors will join colleagues from around Virginia next month to lobby legislators for malpractice reform

By JIM HALL

Date published: 1/21/2004

By JIM HALL Malpractice costs drive call for reform

Fredericksburg-area doctors will put on their lab coats and march on the State Capitol next month to lobby for medical malpractice reform.

The Fredericksburg Area Medical Society has chartered a bus to take physicians to White Coat Day in Richmond on Feb. 4.

The doctors will attend General Assembly committee meetings and lobby state legislators.

The Medical Society of Virginia is sponsoring the event to build support for a package of bills, which would, among other changes, revise the cap on medical malpractice awards and limit attorneys' fees.

"Something has to be done. The system is broken," said Dr. Philip C. Casey, president of the Fredericksburg Area Medical Society.

Casey and other doctors argue that the cost and availability of liability insurance is driven by a flawed legal system that decides malpractice claims. The end result, they believe, is less medical care for patients.

But the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association says that the doctors have made the wrong diagnosis. The lawyers association supports the goal of lower insurance premiums and more access for patients, said Jack Harris, executive director. It disagrees with the doctors' prescription: changing the malpractice cap.

"It didn't work any of the other times they tried it. It won't work this time," Harris said.

There is little disagreement that physicians are having a hard time buying malpractice insurance and paying higher premiums when they can find it.

For example, Dr. James F. Hamilton and Dr. Mathew F. Vogel, the only obstetricians in the Northern Neck, have said they will end their practice March 1 if they are unable to renew their insurance coverage.

If so, they would join dozens of other Virginia obstetricians, including at least three in Fredericksburg, who have stopped delivering babies because of the rising cost of insurance premiums. Virginia is one of 13 states with a malpractice insurance crisis, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The emergency-room doctors and radiologists at Mary Washington Hospital found themselves in a similar position last year. They eventually purchased a liability policy that cost more than double the price of their old policy.

"It's happening all over the state," said Ann Hughes, director of legislative affairs for the Medical Society of Virginia.

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Date published: 1/21/2004