> Doctors to protest premium increases
> Hundreds from the area won't see patients tomorrow. They'll take their
> malpractice cause to Harrisburg.
> By Ovetta Wiggins
> INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU
> Hundreds of physicians from Southeastern Pennsylvania plan to shut down
> their offices and leave their hospital posts tomorrow to go to Harrisburg to
> insist that lawmakers enact insurance-tort reforms and give them relief from
> soaring malpractice-insurance premiums.
> No surgeries are scheduled at Delaware County Memorial Hospital tomorrow,
> and many of Abington Memorial Hospital's physicians say they will call in
> sick to join the protest organized by the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
> "Closing our doors is not meant to punish our patients, but to serve as an
> example of what can happen if doctors are no longer available to practice,"
> said Bruce B. Vanett, an orthopedic surgeon in Havertown and president of
> the Pennsylvania Orthopedic Society. "A severe health crisis is imminent."
> The doctors, most from the Philadelphia area, say they are so strapped by
> malpractice premiums and lower reimbur{*filter*}t rates from health insurance
> that many of their colleagues - especially orthopedic surgeons,
> neurosurgeons and obstetricians - have moved out of Pennsylvania, retired
> early or scaled back their practices.
> About 11 percent of the doctors in Pennsylvania have done so in the last
> four years, according to the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
> According to Timothy Schollenberger, president of the Pennsylvania Trial
> Lawyers Association, that exodus is mainly the result of changes in HMO
> policies. He said the protesting physicians "are trying to intimidate the
> public into their point of view."
> "It's a scare tactic," Schollenberger said. "It's a pattern of extreme
> behavior by the doctors. They have threatened to leave the state, they have
> threatened to practice without insurance, and now they are effectively
> calling for a strike."
> The doctors blame the departures on skyrocketing malpractice-insurance
> rates - which they say are partly the result of high jury awards to
> plaintiffs. In addition to paying for their primary coverage, doctors also
> pay into the state's Medical Professional Liability Catastrophic Loss, or
> CAT fund, which assesses doctors a surcharge to pay malpractice claims
> exceeding the primary coverage limit.
> According to the Pennsylvania Medical Society, obstetricians in the
> Philadelphia region pay an average of $84,000 yearly in malpractice
> insurance, while the same doctors in New Jersey pay about $58,000, and in
> Delaware, $52,000. Neurosurgeons pay $111,000 for coverage in Philadelphia.
> If their practices were in New Jersey, the rate would be about $75,000.
> "If I moved my practice two miles across the Delaware River, I'd go from
> paying $100,000 a year to about $30,000 a year," said Frank Giammattei, an
> orthopedic surgeon who can see New Jersey from his office in Upland,
> Delaware County. He said the seven members of his practice had gone from
> paying $380,000 last year to $610,000 this year, a 70 percent increase.
> Earlier this year, a dozen orthopedic surgeons at Frankford Hospital decided
> not to renew their malpractice-insurance coverage and stopped operating. The
> move forced the facility to shut its trauma unit and divert patients to
> other hospitals for four days. Frankford administrators were able to get the
> doctors back into surgery by helping to pay premiums and promising to work
> with them on the issue.
> Schollenberger of the trial lawyers' group said doctors should be focusing
> on accountability, which helps to lower premiums. He compared Pennsylvania
> to Massachusetts, which has had little or no tort reform, but which has
> lower insurance premiums because patients have access to information about a
> doctor's history of patient safety. Consequently, he said, bad doctors are
> weeded out.
> "Pennsylvania does not have an effective patient-safety program, it does not
> have physician profiling or experience rating of doctors," he said. "All
> they want to do is blame it on the tort system . . . but tort law is not a
> significant factor in making premiums rise or fall."
> The doctors' push on Harrisburg is part of an eight-week lobbying campaign
> they started last month to urge insurance changes. The effort heated up last
> week with 60-second radio ads as doctors hung posters in their offices and
> handed out literature. The Delaware County Medical Society urged its members
> to close their offices, even if they did not go to Harrisburg.
> Martin Bergman, a rheumatologist for the Crozer-Keystone Health System and
> president of the Delaware County Medical Society, said doctors would be
> available to handle emergencies.
> In Montgomery County, only two of the 11 physicians from the Abington
> Orthopedic Specialty Center in Willow Grove will be on call for emergencies
> as their colleagues travel to Harrisburg. About 50 additional Abington
> Memorial Hospital staffers plan to attend the legislative meetings organized
> by the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

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