WMed Blog

Palm Beach County Florida is a great place to live and work. Many of the best doctors in America have been attracted to the area to practice medicine. The area’s neurosurgeons treat a variety of diseases including brain and spinal trauma, tumors, vascular disease, and back problems. Several limit their practice to special areas such as pediatrics or diseases of the spine.

Neurosurgeons are considered by their colleagues to be the “Green Berets” of medicine. They have one of the longest training programs and perform some of the most technically difficult surgery. Neurosurgeons frequently operate against long odds for success. The nervous system is vulnerable to trauma and damaged tissue has only a limited ability to heal. Many of their cases meet the category of “medical disasters”. Thankfully these cases are interspersed with many patients who have a complete and amazing recovery. Because of the characteristics of their specialty, neurosurgeons are among the most frequently sued doctors in America.

Surprisingly, our judicial system has been added to the long list of obstacles facing neurosurgeons in restoring the health of their patients. The State of Florida recently passed a constitutional amendment titled “Public Protection from Repeated Malpractice”. This amendment prohibits medical doctors who have been found to have committed three or more incidents of medical malpractice from being licensed to practice medicine in Florida.

During the past 25 years, 26 physicians have provided the majority of neurosurgery care in Palm Beach County. According to data derived from the “Professional Liability Closed Claims” database maintained by the State of Florida, there have been 75 malpractice claims lost by this group of neurosurgeons. The dates of occurrence of these claims range from 12/24/74 to 11/14/2001. The dates of settlement range from 7/8/77 to 11/21/2003. The interval from occurrence to settlement ranges from 0.9 to 10. 4 years with an average of 4.5 years. This database does not monitor lawsuits won by the physician or claims that are still in progress.

22 of the 26 neurosurgeons in the county appear in this closed liability claims database. The first neurosurgeon to practice in Palm Beach County had no recorded claims in the database. Several of the newer arrivals in the county also show no closed claims to date. but pending lawsuits will become a certainty.

The range of malpractice claims lost by the county’s neurosurgeons is from 0 to 15 claims per physician with an average of 2.9 closed claims per physician. Since previous studies by the Physician Insurers Association of America have shown physicians win about 4 out of 5 malpractice claims, an estimate of the total number of malpractice claims defended by these physicians would be in the several hundreds (about 400 cases using the above information). The total payment for the 75 closed claims in this group was $21,010,207. The average claim was $280,136. The largest claim was $2,500,000.

The average neurosurgeon in the county appears to accumulate a malpractice claim every one to two years and loses a claim every 4 to 5 years. The time spent and cost of defending these lawsuits is unknown but is certainly significant.

Of the original group of 26 neurosurgeons, 2 are believed deceased, 2 are retired, 4 have only limited practices, and 7 are known to have left the area. This follows the trend for many neurosurgeons to leave the county after only several years of practice. This is particularly critical because the county has had significant and steady population growth including a marked increase in the need for medical services of an aging population.

Data from this study clearly shows that the practice of neurosurgery in Palm Beach County Florida will become severely limited or impossible as long as the existing medical liability system remains intact and if the recently passed constitutional amendment is upheld and enacted.

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By Joseph F. Phillips, M.D.
WMed

References:

1. Florida Department of Financial Services, Professional Liability Closed Claims, Web Address: http://www.fldfs.com/Data/Liability/disclaimer.htm

2. Physician Insurers Association of America, Web Address: http://www.thepiaa.org/public_home.asp

(c)2005 Copyright. WMed. This article may be reprinted or quoted if reference is given.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 11th, 2006 at 6:57 pm and is filed under All, Medical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.