Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

Assemblyman Joe Hardy, who voted against the bill, was quoted as saying:

"We have a challenge of getting enough doctors in Nevada...This will decrease the level of care.”

We have a hard time understanding how holding bad doctors accountable for their actions would somehow make the level of care worse. If anything, we think it would do the exact opposite. But aside from that, Assemblyman Hardy seems to be laboring under the myth that there was a mass exodus of doctors in Nevada due to medical malpractice cases, or that no new doctors wanted to practice in the state. The Nevada Board of Medical Examiners would beg to differ.

The NBME is not a partisan group. They are the people that award licenses to practice medicine in Nevada. In that capacity, they keep pretty good track of exactly how many doctors are practicing within their borders.

According to their 2008 Annual Report:

“…from 1980 through 1992, the ratio of physicians to 100,000 population was relatively static, staying between 140 and 149 physicians per 100,000 population throughout these years. Starting in 1993 through 2005, the ratio moved up to the next range, staying between 153 to 161 physicians per 100,000 population through this period. Beginning in 2006, the ratio has steadily climbed from 168 to 169 and then (in 2008) 172 physicians per 100,000 population.”

Basically what that means is that the level of doctors per 100,000 people has either remained essentially the same or it has climbed every year since 1980. And since 1999, the official license count has done nothing but go up, from 5012 practicing physicians in 1999 to 6896 practicing physicians in 2008. If there was a massive exodus of doctors from Nevada, it certainly wasn’t reflected in these numbers. Also of note in the report is the number of disciplinary actions that the State Medical Board has undertaken since 1999. Of all the doctors practicing in Nevada, only 57 have lost their licenses since 1999. They aren’t exactly draconian out in Nevada.

The legislation that the Nevada Assembly passed and the Senate killed would have allowed for unlimited damages in cases of gross negligence. With only 57 doctors in ten years losing their licenses, it’s hard to imagine that gross negligence occurs enough to make a real dent in the pocketbooks of medical malpractice insurance companies.

This brings us to another aspect of the bill: the argument that the removal of a damages cap would force insurance rates to skyrocket.

At Greenberg and Bederman, we have been practicing law for almost a quarter of a century, and a great deal of that time has been spent dealing with insurance companies. And we can tell you with great certainty that the only thing that can force an insurance rate to skyrocket it is the insurance company itself. The rates don’t spontaneously rise and fall on their own accord.

It’s clear that all of the popular arguments against such damage caps have very little to do with a concern for the state of medicine in Nevada. Doctors weren’t priced out of practicing medicine, and insurance companies didn’t go broke. But what has happened is that a fixed rate has been put on human suffering for no good reason, no matter how significant that suffering is, and there is nothing good about that.

To learn more about medical malpractice issues, please read medical malpractice.  To learn more about our medical malpractice lawyer, John Sellinger, please read about John Selinger, or view his medical malpractice video on Utube.