More tort reform smoke and mirrors

Doctors not moving to Mexico?

    It appears that Georgia’s and the rest of the country’s doctors aren’t really closing down their medical practices as frequently as some people have claimed.  Two reports in the June 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association conclude that the high costs of malpractice insurance rarely drive physicians to move their practices out of state.

    The article refers to a May 2003 survey of 824 Pennsylvania-based physicians who worked in 6 medical specialties that have a high risk of lawsuits (emergency medicine, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, obstetrics/gynecology, and radiology)

    The survey was conducted by Dr. David M. Studdert from Harvard School of Public Health.   Dr. Studdert chose Pennsylvania because medical malpractice insurance rates were rising rapidly there.  Co-author Dr. William M. Sage stated "It has been a claim of pro tort reform stakeholders that if you do not enact malpractice reform in a state, then doctors will leave the state." Dr. Sage continued, "We found instead that there is a 3.3% greater supply of physicians in states that have capped malpractice compared with states that haven't," he said. "3% is relatively modest in the big picture. It's not as if simply capping malpractice damages is going to eliminate all problems with access to health care."

    The studies show that "there are deep unaddressed problems in identifying medical errors and compensating medical injury that no one wants to confront," Sage said.
He believes that there should be systems that "identify patient injury, tell patients what happened right away and offer compensation up front. If there is a dispute, it should be dealt with in some way other than litigation, some administrative process that is likely to be quicker and cheaper and better for all involved."

    Of course, how much compensation to offer them is not addressed.  Typically the role of a jury is to determine fault and the amount of compensation an injured person should receive.  How will an administrative process that is “quicker and cheaper” evaluate a person’s losses?

    Dr. Peter P. Budetti, MD, of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City remarked, "Medicine's 30-year pursuit of piecemeal tort reform has had some results, but not all the consequences have been positive and serious problems with the quality of medical care have not been ameliorated."

For more access to the full article see:

http://www.acr.org/s_acr/sec_healthnews.asp?TrackID=&SID=1&DID=21624&CID=3155&VID=14&RTID=9&CIDQS=&Taxonomy=False&specialSearch=False&searchquery=nolimit=@TrackID=@otherSections=False@Taxonomy=False@specialSearch=False@advanced=False@searchtype=0@pg=1@RN=1@isNew=False@resetForm=False@CID=461@CIDQS=@crumbcid=461@DID=14116@SID=1@NID=@RTID=@searchaction=find@btnTabs=@selTopic=0@dtStart=3%2F1%2F1997@dtEnd=4%2F10%2F2006@booleanSearch=AND@exclude=@filetype=0@searchPhraseLocation=text%2Ctitle%2Csubject@searchDomain=doc@pageDomain=@sortSearch=rank%2Cpostdate%2Ctitle@pagesize=10@qu=litigation@imgSearch.x=0@imgSearch.y=0@btnSearch=Search

Michael Neff
The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff, P.C.
Two Ravinia Drive
Suite 1570
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
404-531-9700
mneff@mlnlaw.com
WWW.MLNLAW.COM - A law firm whose mission is to provide aggressive, competent and caring representation to personal injury victims.

Jury Duty Scam - Beware!

Jury Duty Scam - Protect your personal information!

Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of SCAM has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS.

In this SCAM someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn't show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator.

If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. If you give out any of this information - your identity just got stolen. DO NOT GIVE OUT ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION!!!!

Fortunately, I am not aware that this has been reported in Georgia. So far it has occurred in in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado. This SCAM is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try and bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their websites, warning consumers about the fraud. Contact your police department if it happens to you and if your phone has Caller ID and shows a phone number give this to the authorities. Check it out here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

Michael L. Neff

The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff, P.C.
Two Ravinia Drive
Suite 1570
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
404-531-9700
MNEFF@MLNLAW.COM
WWW.MLNLAW.COM - A law firm whose mission is to provide aggressive, competent and caring representation to personal injury victims.

Costs of healthcare

Are Lawsuits dramatically running up the costs of healthcare?  What about rich compensation for insurance company executives?  Its interesting that the Chamber of Commerce hasn’t complained about the $1.6 billion compensation through options for United Health’s CEO William McGuire. Is $1.6 billion maybe a little excessive for a company that makes its money cutting costs?

More commenatary at: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/05/how-can-1248-million-year-ceo-make.html
Michael L. Neff
The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff, P.C.
Two Ravinia Drive
Suite 1570
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
404-531-9700
MNEFF@MLNLAW.COM
WWW.MLNLAW.COM - A law firm whose mission is to provide aggressive, competent and caring representation to personal injury victims.

More Statefarm Stuff in Mississippi

I realize that this is a Mississippi issue, but it illustrates troubles people can have collecting from insurance companies:

An engineering company altered a report to eliminate the significant role wind played in severely damaging the home of an elderly Gulfport, Mississippi couple during Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29, a lawsuit claims. Full story at link here:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2006/03/22/66633.htm

This is not the first time that evidence reflects that Rimkus has been caught altering an
engineering report in favor of their client the insurance company.  In fact former employees have provided proof of this "method" Rimkus has adopted when denying a claim.

Michael L. Neff
The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff, P.C.
Two Ravinia Drive
Suite 1570
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
404-531-9700
MNEFF@MLNLAW.COM
WWW.MLNLAW.COM - A law firm whose mission is to provide aggressive, competent and caring representation to personal injury victims.

Statefarm destroyed documents?

In the latest controversy involving the "good neighbor", State Farm is accused of destroying documents to avoid paying Katrina property damage insurance claims.

See below or http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060411/ap_on_go_co/katrina_insurance.

Michael L. Neff
The Law Offices of Michael L. Neff, P.C.
Two Ravinia Drive,Suite 1570
Atlanta, Georgia 30346
404-531-9700
MNEFF@MLNLAW.COM
WWW.MLNLAW.COM - A law firm whose mission is to provide aggressive, competent and caring representation to personal injury victims.

BILOXI, Miss. - A lawyer for U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that State Farm Insurance Co. is destroying documents that could show the insurer has fraudulently denied thousands of claims by Lott and other policyholders whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Zach Scruggs, one of Lott's attorneys, says his client has a "good faith belief" that several State Farm employees in Biloxi are destroying engineering reports that gave conflicting conclusions about whether wind or water was responsible for storm damage.

Like thousands of Gulf Coast homeowners, Lott's claim was denied because State Farm concluded that Katrina's flood water demolished his beach-front Pascagoula home. State Farm says its policies do not cover damage from rising water, including wind-driven water.

But lawyers for the Mississippi Republican claim Bloomington, Ill.-based State Farm has routinely pressured its engineers to alter "favorable" reports that initially blamed damage on hurricane's wind, which the company's policies cover.

A State Farm spokesman said Monday he couldn't immediately comment on Scruggs' allegations.

Lott's allegations come on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Kiln, Miss., couple who claimed they had obtained copies of conflicting reports prepared by State Farm's engineers on what damaged their home. They said one report traced the destruction to Katrina's winds while a later report said flooding was the culprit.

In response, State Farm spokesman Phil Supple had said the second report was the only one the engineering firm sent to State Farm's claims office.

In an interview Monday, Scruggs said corporate "whistleblowers" who are cooperating with Lott's attorneys have provided evidence that State Farm employees are destroying or moving those "initial favorable" engineering reports.

"We believe that this is a systematic practice," said Scruggs, who is Lott's nephew by marriage.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood also says he is investigating allegations that State Farm manipulated engineering reports to deny claims after the Aug. 29 hurricane.

A judge ordered State Farm to turn over copies of its Katrina engineering reports to Hood's office. The judge also ordered Hood's office to set up a "Chinese wall" that would keep the documents out of the hands of lawyers with civil cases against State Farm.

Because Hood also has filed a civil case on behalf of the state against State Farm and other insurance companies, State Farm is asking the judge to bar Hood himself from seeing the records.

State Farm denied Lott's claim in December based on a report prepared by Jade Engineering & Construction Inc. that concluded that the house was "probably damaged by storm surge/flooding and not by wind."

Scruggs is asking a federal judge to order State Farm to turn over Lott's entire case file as well as records for other policyholders' claims.