Posts tagged "Florida"

Last week, a Florida state senator and representative proposed legislation intended to replace the current, broken medical malpractice system in the state with an administrative structure modeled after the workers compensation system. Sen. Alan Hays and Rep. Jimmy Patronis say that the current medical liability process is adversarial, expensive and inefficient, and the legislation they […]

side note: This is a very interesting proposal by the James Madison Institute because they are addressing the cost of defensive medicine in an intellectually honest way. The report acknowledges that caps on non-economic damages are effective at lowering medical malpractice insurance rates, but not at lowering the instances of defensive medicine, which add to […]

side note: This week, the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) released its annual Judicial Hellholes Report. Since 2002, the Judicial Hellholes Report has documented in annually published reports various abuses within the civil justice system, focusing primarily on jurisdictions where courts are radically out of balance. This list has been an invaluable tool in educating […]

The James Madison Institute just released an interesting study entitled, Alternative Solutions to Florida’s Medical Malpractice System. The report begins by outlining nothing new: a flawed Florida tort system, physician liability insurance cases that take years to resolve, and awards that are dramatically inconsistent. It describes a system that discourages the reporting of errors and, […]

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: Word on the street is that the cap on non-economic damages in Florida is likely to be overturned. What’s been going on in Florida is simialr to what happened two years ago in Illinois. Medical malpractice insurance rates haven’t been positively affected by the Florida cap because everyone in the industry expects it […]

Side Note: There is some good news for physicians in Florida regarding Florida med mal tort reform. A new bill, HB 479, specifically addresses new, more stringent requirements for expert medical malpractice witnesses who appear in Florida courts. Under the law, out-of-state licensed expert witnesses must obtain certification. In essence, expert witnesses are now being […]

Side note: Prosecuting a “Pill Mill”, individuals who seek out multiple prescriptions of commonly abused prescription drugs for the sole purpose of illegal resale, often requires the same expense and level of expert testimony as a medical malpractice lawsuit. Since prescription drugs are legal the possession of the drugs is not a crime. Criminal intent […]

side note: The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation issued a report that shows a drop in med-mal rates for the 5th year in a row. We do think rates will continue to lower and we do not expect rates to rise anytime soon. We hope this is the case for a State that has seen […]