Better medicine via medical-malpractice controls?

What makes Medical Onshoring (patent-pending) so promising is the goal of restraining runaway medical-malpractice costs and defensive medicine, via special rules and regulations that call for prompt and reasonable compensation for the very rare medical error and mandatory arbitration. The alternative? Read the following ..

Xiao Xu, a research investigator in the University of Michigan Health System's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, won the 2008 BCBSM Foundation McDevitt Excellence in Research award in the area of policy research.

Xu received the award for a paper that was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, examining the effects of medical liability risk on the availability of obstetric care in the state. The study by Xu and her co-authors found that many obstetricians, family physicians and nurse midwives in Michigan planned to discontinue delivering babies or reduce their provision of high-risk obstetric care in the next five years.

The award comes with a $10,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation.

Xu discussed her findings with reporter Gary Gosselin.

Business Review: Hasn't tort reform helped mitigate malpractice liability some?

Xu: A variety of tort reforms have been adopted by states, such as caps on damages, abolition of joint-and-several liability, elimination of prejudgment interest, amendments of the period of limitation of actions (statutes of limitations), caps on attorney contingency-fees ... Overall, the literature finds limited impact of state tort reforms on the size and number of paid medical malpractice claims. Only certain tort reforms, such as caps on damages, collateral-source rule reforms, and reduction of the statutes of limitations, have generally been shown to increase physician supply and reduce malpractice premium rates and severity of medical malpractice payments.

BR: Since malpractice insurance rates dropped this year, wasn't Michigan's reform enough to help obstetrics?

Xu: Obstetrical providers are one of the groups most affected by the increasing medical liability insurance premiums and malpractice litigation risk.

Despite the various efforts made to constrain malpractice insurance premiums and claims costs, concern among obstetric providers remains widespread.

For example, data from the 2006 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists survey on professional liability found that nationwide, 65 percent of obstetrician-gynecologist respondents had made some changes to their practice over the previous three years for fear of professional liability claims or litigation.

This ACOG survey showed that, for District V - in which Michigan is situated - almost 9 percent of obstetrician-gynecologists had ceased practicing obstetrics and 34 percent of obstetrician-gynecologists had reduced the number of high-risk obstetric patients since 2003 because of risks for medical malpractice claims or litigation.