CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- A sense of safety comes from the thought that, if you were to suffer a traumatic injury, medical specialists are on call at your local hospital to administer expert care. In recent years, though, the safety net has begun to unravel as doctors are forced to retire early, discontinue “high risk” procedures, or leave North Carolina due to skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance premiums. The field of neurosurgery in particular has been hard hit -- a frightening thought given its daily role in saving lives.
More than half of North Carolina counties do not have a single local neurosurgeon; 80 percent have two or fewer, according to a 2002 study conducted by the Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Patients in those counties sometimes must travel hundreds of miles to receive care for brain tumors, Parkinson’s disease, head trauma, severe low back pain and other neurosurgical diseases. That distance is hard to traverse in any situation -- imagine doing so in an emergency.
“Here locally in our hospital, we no longer have three neurosurgeons so we no longer cover the emergency room every day of the week,” said Salisbury neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Lyerly.
“We are seeing that specialists are saying, ‘I won’t come to the emergency room anymore. I can’t take the risk,’” said Dr. Damian McHugh, an emergency room physician in Apex. “We need backup. We need our physicians able to provide care.”
Frighteningly, this scenario is spreading across North Carolina. As costs of medical malpractice insurance skyrocket, doctors in many practices are being forced to cut back services, retire early, change professions or close their office doors. Neurosurgery as a field, caring for the body’s fragile nervous system, is one of medicine’s leaders in increased insurance rates.
“The system is on its way not to just being broken, it’s already broken. It’s on its way to being non-existent,” explained Dr. Craig Van der Veer, a neurosurgeon in Charlotte.
Between December 2001 and June 2003, medical malpractice insurance rates for neurosurgeons in North Carolina rose between 25 and 166 percent. That field is not alone; obstetricians, orthopedic surgeons, thoracic surgeons and emergency room physicians also saw dramatic increases, anywhere from 14 to 378 percent. Almost 60 percent of the state’s liability insurance market is controlled by only three companies.
Dr. David Paganelli is a casualty of these North Carolina numbers. The neurosurgeon recently moved to Oklahoma from Hendersonville in search of less expensive medical malpractice liability insurance rates. “Basically I’m sick by it,” he said. “In one and a half years my premium went up to $194,000, without any claims.”
His former patients in Hendersonville feel the loss of Paganelli’s care acutely. “I’m very sorrowful for our community because it is losing him,” said patient Evelyn Chamberlin, whom Paganelli treated after she suffered a serious fall. “He has done so much for me, and I know there are others that will need his services and I can’t imagine what they’re going to do.”
“Dr. Paganelli deserves to be able to practice what he loves to do, and that is creating miracles of healing,” said another former Hendersonville patient, Dan Pace.
“It makes me feel like I’m bailing on them. I’m not bailing on them - I don’t have a choice. I don’t know what else I could do,” Paganelli said.
These staggering figures are due in large part to the quickly rising sums awarded by juries in malpractice suits - not only those in mega-cases, but also payouts in average liability claims have surged in recent years. In North Carolina, the median large medical liability award has increased 74 percent from 1992 to 2002, from $1,990,000 to $3,480,000.
“There’s no reason that a lawyer should acquire 40 or 50 percent of a judgment that’s given to a patient for their problem. This is just ridiculous greed that’s driving this system,” said Dr. Van der Veer. “If I could say anything to the people in Washington, I would tell them if they don’t fix this it’s going to come back and bite them.”
“How many people have to die, or be permanently comatose or paralyzed, before it changes?” asked Dr. Lyerly.
Doctors for Medical Liability Reform (DMLR), a group of 230,000 doctors across the United States, is fighting to amend the dire insurance problems faced by North Carolina’s neurosurgeons and other medical practitioners. One key step toward this goal is the passage of federal legislation for medical malpractice liability reform.
In North Carolina, DMLR has submitted pledges of support for national liability reform to the state’s two U.S. Senate candidates, Republican and congressman Richard Burr and Democrat Erskine Bowles. Rep. Burr has signed the pledge; Bowles declined.
Doctors for Medical Liability Reform (DMLR) is an issue advocacy group founded to pursue national medical liability reform. DMLR believes that a cap on non-economic damages will help the ever-growing crisis among neurosurgeons, as well as other specialty physicians. Without meaningful liability reform, North Carolina will continue to lose gifted neurosurgeons. Doctors for Medical Liability Reform is a group of more than 230,000 physicians from at least 11 specialties that supports meaningful liability reform. For more information on DMLR, visit http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/ .
Doctors for Medical Liability Reform
CONTACT: Winn Maddrey, +1-704-344-9191, for Doctors for MedicalLiability Reform
Web site: http://www.protectpatientsnow.org/
