side note: Medical malpractice insurance premiums are threatened by a case before the Missouri Supreme Court. The state’s high court is currently considering the constitutionality of Missouri’s $1.2 million cap on non-economic, pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice cases. In the case being considered, the plaintiff’s estate was awarded $1 million for past medical bills and […]

side note: Since 1975, capping non-economic (pain and suffering) damages in medical malpractice lawsuits has been considered the Gold Standard of effective tort reforms. There is gobs of data supporting the conclusion that state’s with non-economic damage caps have considerably lower medical malpractice insurance premiums than states of a comparable size and demographic that do […]

side note: Since 1975, California’s MICRA Tort Reforms, which include a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages, has been the gold standard of tort reforms for more than 35 years. It has been tested in the state’s court system regularly, and most recently, an appellate court decision that reduced a $6 million jury award to the […]

side note: The report discussed in this article was published by the James Madison Institute (JMI), a Florida-based think tank dedicated to dedicated to advancing the ideas of limited government, economic freedom, federalism and individual liberty coupled with individual responsibility. The JMI report argues that the current medical liability tort system is ineffective, costly and […]

side note: Today’s healthcare industry is increasingly dependent on computers and data sharing via the internet or an intranet system. Add to this the increasingly common use of social networking services, like Facebook, as a means of marketing a medical practice to potential patient customers. This evolution toward cyber-dependency has been accelerated by the Patient […]

side note: In 2005, the Illinois Legislature passed a series of tort reform laws intended to have a deflating effect on medical malpractice insurance premiums for the state’s healthcare workforce. At the heart of these reforms was a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages. Non-economic damages are harms such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement […]

side note: Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen recently released a study that analyzed data from Texas, which in 2003 imposed some of the strictest liability caps in the country. While medical malpractice litigation plummeted dramatically since the caps were imposed, residents of Texas are still paying as much for healthcare as any other state in […]

Editor’s note: Today’s blogpost is the first of a three-part series on how a successful medical malpractice insurance agent views the future of the market and the broker’s role within it. The article it originates from was initially published in the April 2012 issue of Medical Liability Monitor, the industry’s premier source for consistent, reliable […]

On Oct. 31, the Indiana Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the state’s Patient Compensation Fund (PCF)—established to cover excess damages in medical malpractice cases—may not dispute the existence or cause of a plaintiff’s injury in a case in which the medical providers previously settled the claim, admitting liability. The decision, Robertson v. B.O., has led […]