damage cap

Federal Legislation to Limit the Amount of Money Recoverable From Medical and Dental Lawsuits Harms Patients

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Wisdom teeth surgery is often performed in young adults in their late teenage years or twenties and results in up to 10% of all cases complications. Some of these complications can be life altering and either prolong for a long period of time or be permanent. Sometimes patients feel as if they have been wronged by their doctor and file a lawsuit. However, many might be surprised to know that a single liability insurance OMSNIC insures the vast majority (over 80%) of all oral and maxillofacial surgeons in the U.S. and that the vast majority (over 90%) of such lawsuits are found in favor of the oral and maxillofacial surgeons. As a result of this very few patients recover money after filling a lawsuit. To make matters worse many states in the U.S. including California and Texas have laws that … Read more

New Legislation In California Proposed to Increase Medical Malpractice Damage Caps: Why It is Important if you Are Having Wisdom Teeth Extracted

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A recent piece over on DrBicuspid.com titled “Dentists fight Calif. malpractice insurance ballot measure” draws attention to new proposed legislation in California (California Proposition 46) see http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=log&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.drbicuspid.com%2findex.aspx%3fsec%3dsup%26sub%3dbai%26pag%3ddis%26ItemID%3d316366. The article discusses the previous medical malpractice legislation in California called the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) which placed a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damage awards. The act did allow for unlimited economic damages and out of pocket costs. The article then discusses Proposition 46 in California written as “The Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act,” to quadruple MICRA’s cap on noneconomic damages to $1.1 million. This actually simply changes the original $250,000 non-economic damage cap established in 1975 to what it would be today if it was indexed for inflation. I have previously discussed this over at http://www.teethremoval.com/legal_standpoint.html. The article goes on to get commentary from a past California Dental Association … Read more

The Optional Alternative to Medical Injury Claims

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Previously on this blog I have discussed some of the issues with medical malpractice in the United States and some potential alternatives. In this post Potential Alternatives to the Current Medico-Legal System in the United States I talk about some possible alternatives such as having some agreement directly with the physician and hence avoiding trial lawyers. In this provocative post How to Improve Your Chances to Win a Dental Malpractice Lawsuit I discuss the 4 elements you need to win a malpractice suit in the U.S. and a possible suggestion to help improve your chances of doing so. Last year, Kevin Pho known as “social media’s leading physician voice” discussed in a post written on July 16, 2012, titled “The New York medical malpractice crisis: Who’s to blame?,” how some financially struggling hospitals are going without medical malpractice insurance and just … Read more

Defense Expenses and their role in Medical Malpractice Claims

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An interesting article titled “The Impact of Defense Expenses in Medical Malpractice Claims” written by Aaron E. Carroll, Parul Divya Parikh, and Jennifer L. Buddenbaum appears in the Spring 2012 issue of the The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (vol. 40, issue 1, pages 135-142). The authors state “Multiple factors go into the determination of medical professional liability insurance premiums including return on investments, reinsurance costs, claims frequency, average amount paid out on malpractice claims, defense expenses, and administrative costs such as underwriting expense. These factors all interact with each other and, in general, evidence exists that each of these factors has played a role in the escalating cost of medical professional liability insurance.” The authors go on to describe tort reform efforts and state “These reform efforts include caps on damages, abolition of punitive damages, eliminating mandatory prejudgment interest, … Read more