What happens if your doctor doesn't have insurance?

It's very sad when a contractor has to prove he has current insurance before he can start work, yet a doctor can perform surgery on you without it.

Lets not forget it isn't just the lawyers, remember the jury of our peers hear these claims and are the ones that award these huge settlements. Especially in Broward and Dade county !! The lawyers state their case, the defendants state their defense and the jurors award sickening awards!

I truly feel bad for patients who are victims of malpractice. I think all doctors should have malpractice insurance.
This lack of proper malpractice insurance coverage has resulted from health insurance companies paying less and less every year to doctors for the services we perform. Ask your doctor this question: "Would you be able to afford malpractice if health insurance companies paid reasonable fees for all your services?" This would be an obvious yes! What has happened is doctors are often being paid less than 10-20% of the actual fee billed, thus a doctor's gross income is drastically reduced. Malpractice insurance premiums are the first overhead to be cut in order to stay in business. I think the next question the reader should have is "Why should my health insurance company be allowed to reimburse a doctor peanuts instead of a reasonable fee for service?" Its not a malpractice crisis, its an insurance reimbursement crisis! I hope this is clear to the reader. The economics of this dilemma will not be solved by malpractice caps. However if every insurance company was forced to pay a respectable fee to all licensed doctors for services rendered, then it would certainly be easy to afford malpractice coverage.

No don't. It's so much nicer here ... the people, the climate, the trees. Stay.

John wrote:

Funny how if there is only a few hundred thousand to be made these lawyers won't take the case. I am a doc and moved from FL to Georgia to get away from the malpractice climate, now if the insurance rates go down I may come back

I went to the ER a while back for a job related injury. It was minor, but per policy I had to get checked. I now get letters from injury lawyers daily asking if I want to sue. It's rediculous, I have no reason to sue, no one to blame, but these leaches buy info from billing companies just trying to find a way to sue somebody. If I had the time, I would call them, schedule an appointment and waste their time. Then after I take as long as I can, tell them to get a real job and walk out.

Joe wrote:

I went to the ER a while back for a job related injury. It was minor, but per policy I had to get checked. I now get letters from injury lawyers daily asking if I want to sue. It's rediculous, I have no reason to sue, no one to blame, but these leaches buy info from billing companies just trying to find a way to sue somebody. If I had the time, I would call them, schedule an appointment and waste their time. Then after I take as long as I can, tell them to get a real job and walk out.

If you spent 5-8 years going to law school, and god knows how much $$$, you need a supply-line for your career. There are so many damn lawyers, this is the only way the can all EAT!!!!!!!!!!

It's a shame these ambulance chasers ruined it for anyone who might have had a real claim

No what's sad is these ads on tv advertising that if you slip and fall or get in a fender bender these lawyers will send you to their scam doctors and then try to sue the cr@p out of your insurance co. Now they need to clean up the scam auto insurance accident fraud. We need less lawyers and more doctors and engineers.

Whats it all coming to wrote:

It's very sad when a contractor has to prove he has current insurance before he can start work, yet a doctor can perform surgery on you without it.

Yeah this welfare mentality, low rent scum wait for a lawsuit and play the injury like it's the lotto. It is sickening!

Runaway Jury wrote:

Lets not forget it isn't just the lawyers, remember the jury of our peers hear these claims and are the ones that award these huge settlements. Especially in Broward and Dade county !! The lawyers state their case, the defendants state their defense and the jurors award sickening awards!

joe wrote:
These articles never tell it like it is!!!
I am what Florida should want - a young physician who graduated #1 from this nation's #1 medical school. However, I am in NY/NJ right now looking for jobs because it is intolerable to practice medicine in Florida!!!
The risk of malpractice is too high because people sue for nonsense all the time - I'm leaving!!!
These references that "journalists" make to doctors in their big houses are a joke - that is from yesteryear - young doctors today will never make that money!
I am struggling in Florida and explain to me how am I supposed to pay $200,000 for malpractice insurance when my gross salary last year was $188,000???????
Should I work my butt off all day long and have insurance only to lose $12,000 per year. I would be well below the poverty line if I had insurance and practiced in Florida. Since I'm not comfortable without insurance, I am leaving!!!!

Old Salt replies:

As a doc (also a grad of the #1 med school) practicing in FL for the last 2 decades, I sympathize and regret what you are experiencing. I wish you success, but ask you to ponder the following wherever you set up your practice.

I have realized that the true culprits are not the trial lawyers or the treacherous patients. We, the 'lemming-like' doctors have been lulled into a trance by the following:
(1) beguiling pipe music of the Med-mal insurance carriers,
(2) the sporadic horror stories from the doctors' lunch room,
(3) the scary tales from the big-buttocked, well-paid hospital administrators, and,
(4) sadly, the reality of our own shortcomings related to our poor communication skills with our patients.

Why do we have the latter (#4) you ask?

Here is the answer: We are bound to communicate poorly with our patients if we have to see 15 patients per hour in order to collect our overhead and another 5 patients per hour if we want to take home grocery money to our spouse and kids. Forget vacations, school fees, car payments and house money! That is money we have to hustle!

The clowns that take our money and the patients' money are the insurance companies, who, with every breath that their wealthy executives take as they wheeze around the golf course, also strive to deny, delay and do not pay the benefits they are supposed to.

Very few will read this and understand what I am trying to say. Those that do, and understand me too, will adjust their efforts and energies accordingly. There is still money to be made in medicine.....but it is getting harder as the loopholes tighten.

Just look at how the major medical centers are shifting their focus to make more money in non-traditional ways to gain market-share. We should have had the business courses in med school that our chiropractor/D.O. competitors slept through but still passed!

One reason that there is "no future" in medical malpractice cases in Fla. is because of the abuses perpetrated by the med/mal attorneys in the 70's and 80's. I'm sure Mr. schlessinger knows at least 1 of them.

tony wrote:

for years The lawyers abused the system and made fortunes so now the pendulum swung the other way. The drum beat from the lawyers is "were hear to help the injured" yeah right no one believes that anymore. The lawyers were irresponsible and didn't think about tomorrow just how much they could rape the system so here we are.
They just moved onto other industries such as drug manufactures and the same thing will happen there also.
Just consider this fact Florida's population is approximately 16,000,000 and there are roughly 70,000 lawyers in the state (according to the Florida bar) or put another way 1 lawyer for every 228 man, women and child in the state. I don't know about you but that seems to many to me.

Wow! Imagine how the blowhards on this forum took this article and turned it on to the lawyers!

Perhaps it's not the lawyers who were wrong in this matter, hm? Maybe it's the doctors and the AMA and *their* lobbies who made doctors who commit malpractice virtually untouchable. Let's just protect the doctors and blame the lawyers.

Get a life folks! The doctors have immunized themselves. Don't blame lawyers.

JAL wrote:

Why is this such a novel concept to the Florida legislature?

Because the legislature is unbalanced. It caters/-ed to the AMA and the medical lobbyists and has, effectively, made doctors immune from most lawsuits.

Couple that with the diminished returns to doctors for their services and the exhorbitant insurance premiums charged by the bloated insurance companies, and ... viola! No balance.

ADAM THE MACHO LIFEGUARD wrote:

I AM NO LONGER A SWEATY, BULGING, SPEEDO PLAYING THE FIELD. I MET A WONDERFUL MAN WHILE UP IN TRIAL IN BOSTON. WE ARE GETTING MARRIED. MY STAND WILL NO LONGER BE A STENCH FILLED LUST SHACK. WHISH ME WELL!

Adam. are we all invited.?

Why are there lawyers.?... because there are doctors. lol

The entire system is just crooked. Can't blame the MD's for quitting the insurance... and then it leaves the public at risk.
But what to do? The system needs to be changed.

http://www.luvmycritters.com/Cat-Food-Coupon....

I am not about to read all the responses on here, but here's a thought I toss out... Why not ask your doctor to provide proof of insurance before you hire him. Why are people afraid of interviewing their physicians before you they become an important part of your healthcare? You interview babysitters, people who may work in your home but I have never heard anyone bother to worry about their own body. INSANE! I promise you if I am paying, even if it is just a co-pay or the deductable, I assure you, you're going to be interviewed before touching me.

We as citizens are forced to carry auto insurance by the state, homeowner's insurance, flood insurance and wind insurance are a must. Doctors don't have to carry any malpractice insurance! Either apply the same laws and or standards to everyone or apply them to no one. The State of Florida has a dysfunctional government and legislature which is probably the same throughout the nation. We the People are the source of all that happens in this great country and must assume this power to have change which benefits us and not fat politicians.

So all of this breastbeating is fine and dandy, but the question still remains......what DO you do if your doctor does not have malpractice insurance???

Haven wrote:

To all of you lawyer haters - you better hope you're never in a position to need a lawyer! Lawyers founded this country, wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Lawyers defend the rights of the citizens of this country.
BTW- the quote from William Shakespeare's "the 1st thing we do is kill all the lawyers" was spoken by a character who wanted to get rid of the lawyers who were the defenders of the rights of people. In other words, he was affirming that to take advantage of a people, first you had to get rid of the defenders of the people -- the lawyers.
You might actually want to read Shakespeare before pretending that you know something about it.
I say you lawyer-haters are all a bunch of morons who couldn't get into law school if you tried -- much less pass the Bar exam! Jealous, jealous, jealous!

You must be a lawyer!

We need lawyers, but they should only get paid for what they do. Not a percentage of what the victim gets! If a lawyer was a plumber he probably would charge you 10% of the value of your house to clean a drain. I know the lawyer would argue this, that’s their job.