February 7, 2023 by matray

Below are some headlines and article synopses from the February 2023 issue of Medical Liability Monitor. To read the articles in entirety, please subscribe today.

NY Governor Vetoes Bill Expanding Wrongful Death Damages, Legislature Rejects Medical Liability Compromise
After much speculation and delay, Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill expanding recoverable damages in wrongful death claims. She first asked legislators to amend the bill to exempt medical liability claims from the changes that would be made to New York’s 176-year-old wrongful death statute. Hochul had until Jan. 30 to sign, veto or let the measure expire due to inaction …

Social Inflation Adds As Much As 11% to Malpractice Losses
Social inflation accounted for somewhere between $2.4 and $3.5 billion, or 8% and 11%, of all medical liability losses incurred by a composite of physician-focused medical liability insurers between 2011 and 2021, according to new research from The Doctors Company and Moore Actuarial Consulting …

Private Equity Changes Workforce Stability in Physician-Owned Medical Practices
New research reveals private equity firms that acquire physician-owned medical practices experience greater replacement of the workforce and rely more heavily on advanced practice providers — such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners — than physicians. The study is the first to characterize the shift in workforce composition following private equity acquisition …

Iowa Political Leaders Signal Intent to Enact Hard Cap
In her annual Condition of State address on Jan. 10, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signaled that enacting a hard cap on medical liability damages would be one of her priorities during the next legislative session. The state already caps noneconomic damages at $250,000 for most medical malpractice cases. There is an exception for those involving permanent impairment, disfigurement or death, for which there is currently no cap ...

Nearly a Quarter of Inpatient Visits Had an Adverse Patient Safety Event
Almost a quarter (23.6%) of the inpatient hospital visits in Massachusetts during 2018 had at least one adverse patient safety event, and almost a quarter (22.7%) of those patient safety issues were preventable, according to a new study from Mass General Brigham and CRICO, the medical professional liability insurer for the Harvard medical community and its affiliated organizations ...

Emergency Medicine Organizations Take Issue with AHRQ Report On Misdiagnosis Rate in the Emergency Department
Nine organizations representing the specialty of emergency medicine (EM) sent a letter last month to leadership at the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ) expressing concerns about of a report it had published, entitled Diagnostic Errors in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Revie. According to the organizations, “the report makes misleading, incomplete and erroneous conclusions from the literature reviewed and conveys a tone that inaccurately characterizes and unnecessarily disparages the practice of emergency medicine in the United States ...”

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