Ohio Report Provides Benchmark for Future Medical Mal Trends

For the first time, the state has compiled a report on the outcome of medical malpractice claims filed in Ohio _ providing a benchmark for future trends over what has been a hot-button issue between doctors and the lawyers who sue them.

“It’s a good base line study and now from here on out we’ll have better data than we’ve had in the past,” said D. Brent Mulgrew, executive director of the 20,000-member Ohio State Medical Association.

The first Ohio Department of Insurance report on medical malpractice claims showed there were 5,051 cases closed in Ohio in 2005, including 65 that landed payments of more than $1 million.

Another 4,005 claims resulted in no payments to those claiming bad care.

The compilation was mandated by a new law to provide information on the outcome of malpractice lawsuits against doctors, dentists, optometrists and chiropractors.

“Subsequent annual reports will build on this foundation, allowing trends to emerge,” Insurance Department Director Ann Womer Benjamin said Tuesday in releasing the report.

Benjamin said subsequent reports, showing any change in the pace of malpractice lawsuits and any amounts awarded, would help policymakers seeking a stable malpractice insurance environment.

Steve Collier, a Toledo attorney who handles malpractice cases and served with Benjamin and Mulgrew on the Ohio Medical Malpractice Commission, criticized the study for providing a summary of cases without specifying, for instance, if a case was filed against one physician or several.

While nearly 80 percent of claims resulted in no payment to those making malpractice complaints, almost all claims led to costs for investigations and legal defenses for a total of $113 million, an average of $24,443 per claim.

“I’m disturbed that there were that many closed without payments because that leads me to believe some of those claims should not have been filed in the first place,” said Mulgrew of the doctors’ trade group.

By region, northeast Ohio, including Cleveland, had half the claims, 2,561, and the highest average claim paid, $303,108. The average paid claims for other regions were southeast $268,075, southwest $244,453, central $242,354 and northwest $224,235.

The state reported recently that four of Ohio’s five largest medical malpractice insurers had revised rates for Ohio doctors with an average decrease of almost 2 percent. The 1.7 percent decrease in rates follows an average increase of 6.7 percent in 2005.

A survey last year of Ohio physicians found nearly four in 10 plan to retire within three years because of rising malpractice insurance. Only 9 percent were over 64.

Seventeen percent, or 1,359 surveys of 8,000 randomly mailed to physicians, were returned.