Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Malpractice costs run off another Georgia doctor

By JUSTIN BEVERLY
M.D., Pediatrics
Peachtree City, Ga.

I read with interest a recent news release to The Citizen newspaper concerning medical malpractice insurance. I would like to respond with a real life example of the current malpractice crisis and how it personally affects local citizens.

Currently, I’m the only full-time pediatrician in the pediatrics section of a Clayton County emergency room a few miles south of Atlanta. I love my job, but the astronomically high and rising costs of medical malpractice premiums have forced me out of my current ER practice. In fact, it’s forced me out of the state of Georgia entirely.

My annual premiums are nearly $50,000 per year and rising rapidly. But the real kicker is the so-called “tail insurance,” the cost that I have to pay in order to QUIT my current job!

Tail insurance premiums cover insurance for claims that might be filed against the doctor after the doctor has left the ER and moved on to another job.

Now I realize that the average layperson would be flabbergasted at the very idea of being forced to pay money in order to leave a job, but welcome to the nightmare that is medical malpractice in Georgia.

I’m a pediatrician, not a neurosurgeon, and yet my tail insurance cost has risen from $8,000 to over $50,000 in the last 18 months, and is rising at the rate of several thousand dollars EACH MONTH.

In other words, for every single month that I continue working here, I have to pay nearly $2,000 MORE in order to leave.

If I don’t leave now, I will essentially be trapped in my current job forever, completely unable to ever pay the tail insurance. In fact, I should have left 12 months ago when I realized the extent of the crisis.

Here’s my real beef: I’m a decent, caring doctor with not a single bad outcome. No claims, no suits, no judgments, no complaints to the hospital personnel; nothing. I have great rapport with my patients and I regularly receive recognition for quality, compassionate care from both the hospital staff and patients.

But in Georgia, it really doesn’t matter if you’re a good doctor, or even a great doctor. What matters, unfortunately, is the overall malpractice climate here in Georgia, where lawyers encourage patients to file frivolous suits and only take a case if they can find a deep pocket somewhere, regardless of the merits of a case.

Unfortunately, the ER has been unable to recruit a pediatrician to fill my full-time position and has decided to completely close the entire pediatrics section within the next few weeks.

Let me be clear: To my knowledge, this is the Southside’s only emergency room with a pediatric section staffed by pediatricians. The next closest one is Hugh Spalding or Egleston in Atlanta.

In my opinion, this is a tragically unfortunate step backwards for the hospital and the community as a whole.

I have to wonder if potential pediatricians have discovered that they simply cannot afford the exorbitant malpractice costs and still make ends meet. It’s just easier to close up shop or look elsewhere.

I personally know of three physicians who are leaving Georgia as soon as the paperwork is complete. Others will follow. I can’t blame the hospital administrators or the ER for the decision, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of my colleagues, but I hate it that it’s come to this.

Of course, the ones who really suffer are the kids and their parents in the community who now must drive another 20 or 30 miles to north Atlanta if they want to find an ER staffed with pediatricians.

I often wonder if the executives of the insurance companies or the lawyers who are fighting this malpractice reform ever take their own children to a pediatric ER in an emergency. If so, they’d better hurry; we close down in a couple of months.

As for me, I’ll be leaving Georgia, my birthplace and home for 34 years, for a state that’s much friendlier to doctors.

It’s time for real malpractice reform in Georgia. It’s time for Clayton, Henry, Fayette and Fulton County legislators and parents to stand up and do what needs to be done to end this madness. If malpractice lawyers and gold-diggers want to win the lottery, fine: Let them play the lottery. Just don’t do it at the expense of children by driving pediatricians out of the state.

Georgia desperately needs to end this malpractice nightmare and let doctors do what doctors do best: Practice medicine. Until then, I’ll be practicing in Utah.

[Justin Beverly, the son of this paper’s publisher, is moving this month to Salt Lake City, Utah, to practice pediatrics there. Utah requires medical malpractice claims to go through a mediation process before lawsuits can be filed. As a result, insurance premiums are much lower.]