Malpractice insurance protects those in the medical profession. A suit that ends up going to court or eventually settled out of court is costly, that is the reason medical malpractice rates are extremly pricey. For example a basic physicians office who practices internal medicine and may also practice one other non-invasive speciality; can cost each physician slightly over $21,000 a year. As far as my experience is concerned, I have never seen a physician being offered a shrinking deductible (older people are not included and neither am I) or any other kind of reduced yearly payment resulting from claims against the physician not being filed for the past year(s). The only thing they do is threaten to shrink is their practice by closing it. Although some doctors should not be doctors and closing their door is not a bad idea. Just think of all the lives you have not sacrificed by doing this!
Back in the day when there was no cable tv to glorify the profession of medicine and channels 2 through 13 were mainly for important stuff and family time tv and the whole sign off and hash afterwards-which mean it was goodnight to the tube according to your time zone, ignorance was widespead. Doctors made a killing and got paid for it. Now you have the internet, to surf and turf and gather information while some highly paid doctor is eating his. Medical information you may need to know is available so that you do not contribute to your own health dilemma by not being informed.
The problem with malpractice is that it does not do enough selective screening within the practice of independent physicians to really determine if a physician is paying more of a premium than they really need to. Huh? This means that a physician that has a patient volume of less than 50 per week and is non-invasive has a relatively low chance of a claim being brough against them for malpractice. So why the high price? Yes, rates may be standard. But to offset the cost somewhat, professional liability insurance or medical malpractice insurers need to be fair to all those insured and not have very small or independent practices paying more per volume of patients and procedures than those who are at higher risk by seeing more patients and who perform invasive procedures on patients.
Professional liability and malpractice insurers need to do the following:
Take assessment of each doctor by:
the number of years in practice
the number of actual claims filed against them per year
the number of patients they see weekly in their practice and or hospital setting
the types of tests or exams they perform in their practice and or hospital setting
the procedures they do if they are are of risk and are invasive or non-invasive
...And the new thing called EMR Malpractice Registry- which is part of an EMR software structure. You go into a patients profile and select to create your notes ie. cardiology or procedure note. Within that note you will then be given the option to select the EMR malpractice registry box and make your comments- the EMR Malpractice Registry information certifies that the patient was seen and examined to the best of your ability and that the patient did not appear distressed regarding the visit, examination or procedure by having complaints about the physician, technician or competency of. This is especially useful during pre-operative clearance, procedures, full physical exams, postoperative visits ect. The EMR Malpractice Registry is also useful when you create a blank note regarding a patients 3, 6 month or yearly follow-up(or lack of, hey with the cost of copays these days you can still get decent restaurant food) or when you make a note regarding the patient being informed about test results via visit, phone or mail. To use the registry all you do is create your notes as you normally would, you then scroll down and select the EMR malpractice registry and check the box and if you want you can submit a comment ie. patient has refused my advice, patient was a no show, or upon asking the patient how was todays exam and they say ok; you can put those comments in as well. The EMR Malpractice Registry is optional and can be submitted yearly to your malpractice insurer. This can determine a physicians bracket of payment with regards to malpractice premiums for the year and subsequently reduce the amount of payment due to good practice incentives and other risk factors that may not be applicable to each and every physician on the planet. Now the only thing we have to come up with the more money to pay front desk workers who help assist submitting all of this information to the malpractice companies, some of these people can barely afford coffee!