April 28, 2010

Tort reform, passed in 2003, credited for fewer filings, smaller awards in most areas.

The number of medical malpractice lawsuits is down significantly statewide, and hospitals are winning those that go to trial, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said Tuesday.

The announcement -- which shows hospitals in the eight-county Lehigh Valley area successfully defended themselves in 29 of 32 trials last year -- comes as national attention has focused on health care and as Republicans have excoriated Democrats for failing to make malpractice reform part of the nation's overhaul.

Across Pennsylvania, there were 1,533 malpractice filings in 2009, a 43.9 percent drop compared to the average before Pennsylvania revamped procedural rules in 2003, the administrative office said. The changes eliminated ''venue shopping'' and tightened a filing requirement to weed out frivolous suits.

''In the recent health care debate nationally, there is an insistent call for reform of the handling of medical malpractice cases within the judicial system,'' state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille said. ''By these two rule changes, Pennsylvania is far ahead of the nation and of individual states in this arena, and we stand as a model for reform.''

Tort reform continues to be a major demand by Republicans nationally, although the health care bill President Obama recently signed into law includes $50 million for tort reform demonstration projects.

In Lehigh County, there were 63 malpractice filings last year, compared with an average of 72 a year in 2000 to 2002. In Northampton, there were 18 filings, versus an average of 73 a year over the same three-year period.

In 2009, hospitals successfully defended themselves in eight of 10 malpractice suits that went before a jury in Lehigh County. The plaintiff lost the only case to go to trial in Northampton.

Statewide, juries sided with hospitals

85 percent of the time last year, the administrative office said, a high for the decade. No award exceeded $10 million.

The numbers add something for both sides of the malpractice debate. For the health care industry, they show that tort reform efforts have worked. For attorneys, they bolster claims that the medical profession overstates the impact the suits have on health costs.

''All the complaints and arguments by the medical system that the legal system is the problem, I think it's absolutely ridiculous,'' said Martin Cohen, a Bethlehem Township attorney whose firm has handled many high-profile Lehigh Valley malpractice cases.

The health care industry in Pennsylvania continues to push for limits on jury awards, including caps on damages for pain and suffering. The Hospital and Health Systems Association of Pennsylvania says despite the past reforms, the cost of medical liability insurance remains more than double what it was in 2000.

Roger Baumgarten, a spokesman for the association, said liability insurance costs continue to keep doctors from coming to Pennsylvania and have resulted in others leaving the state.

Dr. Raymond Singer, a past president of the Lehigh County Medical Society and associate director of Lehigh Valley Health Network's Regional Heart Center, said the medical industry doesn't exaggerate the impact malpractice suits have on costs. He said Lehigh County, where a majority of Lehigh Valley hospitals are located, still has a significant number of filings.

''That should not be interpreted as there no longer being a problem,'' Singer said.

Regardless of how the numbers are viewed, they are good news for county courts that are seeing lower caseloads, especially since malpractice suits are lengthy and heavily specialized.

Under the rule changes seven years ago, the state required that malpractice suits be heard in the county in which the alleged medical errors occurred. That restricted venue shopping, the practice of filing a case in a county known to be kind-hearted to plaintiffs.

The court also mandated lawyers get a ''certificate of merit'' from another physician that attests to the validity of their legal claims, a move aimed to halt lawsuits that lack substance.

''It's a positive,'' said Susan Schellenberg, Lehigh County court administrator. ''There are fewer filings and the juries, when they get them, know they are viable.''

In Northampton County, Court Administrator James Onembo said the sheer cost of going to trial, coupled with the rise of efforts to settle cases out of court, has also helped keep suits down.

''It's not cheap to try a case anymore,'' Onembo said. ''Experts on a case are very, very expensive, and those cases are settling or not being brought.''

There are exceptions to the downward trend. With the elimination of venue shopping, caseloads have leaped for some counties. In the region, that happened with Montgomery County, which had 102 malpractice cases last year, a 371 percent increase from the three-year average before the reform.

And that's not to say that plaintiffs never win their suits. In March, a Northampton County jury awarded $2 million to a Phillipsburg woman whose left leg had to be amputated after a knee replacement surgery at Easton Hospital.

Her attorney, Michael Perrucci, said Pennsylvania's malpractice reforms have been beneficial, since they filter out suits that are unnecessary. But he said he hopes hospitals do more to prevent medical errors, the reason successful suits get filed.

''If you are going to shrink the lawsuits that are in some ways deterrents, then the medical industry needs to step up,'' Perrucci said. ''Because it's unacceptable that medical errors are one of the leading causes of death in America.''

By Riley Yates and Veronica Torrejón OF THE MORNING CALL