Too Little Medical Liability Insurance Coverage

The vast majority of physicians in the State of West Virginia have professional liability insurance coverage of $1 million. While $1 million may seem like a lot of money to many people, I can tell you from firsthand experience that it doesn’t take much for a doctor’s error to produce medical bills alone exceeding $1 million.  Certainly, if a surgeon or a gynecologist, through his negligence, seriously injures a child or a young wage earner, the economic loss alone consisting of medical bills, future care and lost income, often times is well in excess of $10 million, and can approach $25 million.

The problem with the doctor having only $1 million of coverage is that even if the injured party is successful in pursuing a legal negligence claim (malpractice), there will not be sufficient funds to allow the person or their family to adequately care for the needs of the seriously injured individual. That presents a number of problems. One problem is that if the medical doctor does not have adequate insurance to cover an award that might be very large, then his personal estate is at risk. Two, if the doctor’s personal estate cannot cover the money that the liability insurance didn’t pay, then the injured party and their family have no way to provide for the future care that’s needed and to make up the future lost income. The burden of caring for the severely injured individual falls upon society. That means that now, instead of the doctor who committed the negligence that brought about the injury and failed to purchase adequate insurance, the burden is put on the public at large.

I’m advocating that the insurance that’s carried by certain medical doctors should be required to be closer to $10 million; I am not suggesting that all physicians need this type of coverage. Certainly, the physicians that are most likely to cause the greatest harm are surgeons, gynecologists, anesthesiologist, and perhaps radiologists. These are the people that need the additional coverage to not only protect themselves, but to protect the patients and society in general.

When trying to determine the reason (notwithstanding cost) that these physicians in these high risk fields of specialization don’t have adequate coverage, one must consider primarily that for the most part the hospitals where these physicians practice do not require them to carry more than $1 million in liability insurance in order to practice at their facilities. In that regards, the hospitals, in my opinion, are making a huge mistake inasmuch as the liability for payment for the injured person’s excess damages are often times transferred to the hospital by claims against the hospital that should mostly fall on the doctor. That seems unfair to me. This is something that the hospital boards across this state and nation need to look at. That is, it would seem that it would cost the physicians in their high-risk specialties little additional money for insurance premiums costing $10 million versus $1 million when taken in light of the high rewards their specialties receive in terms of income. Therefore, if hospitals required those doctors who specialize in high-risk fields to carry $10 million in liability insurance coverage, then the burden on the hospital, the burden on the injured patient, the doctor himself and society in general would be greatly reduced.

I would further think that physicians, with the help of the hospitals they practice in, could find a creative way to obtain the additional coverage without unduly reducing the net profit to the physicians. If in fact the physicians and hospitals fail to put into place this additional coverage for the protection of those mentioned above, then legislatures should enact laws to require physicians who practice in these dangerous specialties to carry insurance that will protect the public in general.

Certainly, the legislatures in many states, including the State of West Virginia, a number of years ago placed limits on the amount of money that patients injured through the negligence of physicians and hospitals could recover, but allowing for economic damages, then they should take the idea a step further and require physicians practicing at these hospitals in these very high risk specialties to obtain better insurance coverage to at least somewhat protect those patients that are injured through their negligence.