Insurer gives prize for ideas to curb lawsuits

The hope is that more physicians will embrace risk management plans for their offices.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Jan. 3/10, 2005.

Preventing lawsuits increasingly has been on the minds of physicians as medical liability insurance costs have escalated in the past few years. Now one insurance company wants to give an award to doctors and staffs who focus on risk management.

American Physicians Assurance Corp. through Jan. 31 is collecting stories from its 11,000 policyholders concentrated in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico and Ohio so that it can hand out the company's first "Excellence in Risk Management Award."

"We want to encourage physicians who meet high standards in terms of quality care and risk management," said Cathy Burke, APA's marketing director. "We think they go hand in hand."

From discontinuing high-risk procedures to pushing for a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering awards, physicians nationwide have scrambled to find ways to lower their insurance rates and stabilize the medical liability insurance market.

The rising premiums led the AMA to list 20 states as being in a medical liability insurance crisis because physicians are leaving the state, curtailing high-risk procedures or retiring early because they can't afford or can't obtain insurance.

The current climate also has led many insurers to take a harder look at physician record-keeping and office communication before they'll write an insurance policy, said Lawrence E. Smarr, president of the Physician Insurance Assn. of America.

"There is a heightened interest [among insurers] in underwriting the risks," he said. "It's hard to assess clinical skills, but administrative practices can be assessed."