Florida enacts tort reform; medicine disappointed with $500,000 cap

Physicians take a wait-and-see approach to the law, the 10th state medical liability measure to pass in the last year.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Sept. 1, 2003.

After a long and sometimes contentious debate, Florida last month joined a growing list of states that have passed tort reform packages without the $250,000 noneconomic damages cap long sought by physicians.

The Florida Legislature in August approved a compromise bill that includes a $500,000 cap on noneconomic damages against individual physicians in most cases and a $1 million noneconomic damages cap that one or more plaintiffs can collect against multiple physicians.

As has been the case nationwide, physicians and Republicans in Florida saw a $250,000 cap as the most effective way to rein in liability insurance premiums that can exceed $200,000 for some obstetricians. But trial lawyers and Democrats saw insurance law reform as the answer.

Neither side got entirely what it wanted.

The bill passed after 10 months of heated debates and three special legislative sessions. Gov. Jeb Bush -- who sided with the Florida Medical Assn. as a strong supporter of a $250,000 noneconomic damages cap -- signed the measure a day after the Legislature adopted it. The law is set to take effect Sept. 15.

The FMA says the package is not the ideal solution but that some of its provisions might help.

"The bill includes patient safety measures, a $150,000 cap for emergency room physicians and requires annual rate filing, along with freezing rates," said FMA President Robert Cline, MD. "We will have to wait and see what happens."

Florida is one of the 19 states that the American Medical Association says is in the middle of a medical liability crisis because physicians there are leaving the state, retiring early or discontinuing high-risk services because they can't afford or obtain insurance. During the political debate, the FMA delivered affidavits to state legislators from 1,600 doctors saying they were limiting their practices or planning to close shop if things didn't get better.