Malpractice, tort reform - Effect of Lower Malpractice Rates and Caps: More Doctors

If you doubt how deeply steep malpractice premiums obsess doctors and drive them away, I invite you to read “More Doctors in Texas after Malpractice Caps.” (NYT, Oct. 5).

Four years after a constitutional amendment to limit awards to $250,000 for pain and suffering, doctors have flooded the Texas Medical Board with 2500 applications to practice there. Applications are up 30% over 2006. The increase in doctors - double the general population rate – has raised the state’s ranking in physicians per capita to 42nd in 2005 from 48th in 2001, and is certain to move up sharply in 2007. Average malpractice premiums dropped 21% last yeat.

Of doctors awaiting processing, after Texas, 145 come from New York, 118 from California, and 100 from Florida. They include 186 obstetricians, 146 orthopedic surgeons, and 26 neurosurgeons.

Says Dr. Donald Patrick – executive director of the medical board, neurosurgeon, and lawyer, “Doctors are coming to Texas because they sense a friendlier malpractice climate?

This tale’s moral? If you want more doctors in your state, lower your malpractice rates and caps.