Napoli Bern Ripka, LLP Blog

Medical Malpractice: Decrease In Insurance Rates

Over the past year we have been seeing an increase in gas, oil, and medical malpractice insurance. However, the latter may be seeing a trend in the opposite direction. ProMutual Group of Pennsylvania announced that there would be a decrease in it rates. An approximate 6% decrease has been issued to individual practitioners and surgeons. This drop in the rate applies to the base rate, which is constant throughout their medical industry that will be applied as of the first of July for both renewed and existing policies.
            A six percent decrease in insurance prices is a big weight taken of the camel’s back, to say it one way. Doctor’s were really struggling to the high price of insurance premiums forcing them rethink about their future in the medical industry. Many doctors in retirement age were retiring early due to the increased costs. Other doctor’s were even quitting the business altogether. I heard about a doctor who recently quit has practice to become a blogger on the web. The wacky thing about this is that he claimed that he made more money than blogging due to the low overhead. The medical industry was panicking, to say the least.

            Although insurance premiums had been high, it was deserved. The premiums were so high because medical malpractice was high as well. When doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals do not do their job correctly, it correlates directly to a negative impact on their patients. And this is something that the medical insurance companies could not rely on. The high cost of their premiums was at the fault of those needing it on a daily basis, the medical professionals. Since the rate of medical malpractice was so high, so would be true of medical insurance. However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Medical malpractice has seen a decreasing rate in medical insurance, because it has also seen a decrease in medical malpractice. This issue makes sense because it is based on a direct correlation. If practitioners in other states want to see a decrease in their medical insurance, then they have to maintain a safer office with less occurrences of medical malpractice.

            One way to decrease the amount of medical malpractice is to not crawl on your hands and knees to large pharmaceutical companies. Although by no means does this apply to every company, pharmaceutical companies push high costing drugs to doctors while offering them generous incentives and perks. This is a sure way for doctors to be tempting these high costing drugs to patients that might not necessarily need it. The bad thing is that being prescribed medication that you might not need can cause harmful side effects and worsen your current condition. However, a decrease in the rate of medical malpractice insurance in Pennsylvania is a good thing. We hope to see an increase of decreased rates in other stated in the near future.