CHASENBOSCOLO Personal injury attorneys Archives

$11 billion and $700 million. That’s almost $12 billion. These are the 2016 profits of the following publicly traded property and casualty insurance companies: Travelers, Allstate, USAA, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Hartford, FM Global, Loews and Fidelity National.^[1]

This does not include the twenty-four billion dollar profit that Berkshire-Hathaway, the owner of Geico, earned in 2016.

Nor does it include the 2016 profits of the larger mutual property and casualty companies in the United States: Erie, $210 million; Auto-Owners, $386 million; State Farm, $250 million; Nationwide, $910 million; and even the relative newcomer to TV advertising, Farmer’s, earned $148 million (or $37 million every three months).

And don’t get me started on the health insurance companies. Let’s look at their second quarter of 2017: United Health Group, $2.3 billion; Aetna, $1.2 billion; Anthem, $855 million; Cigna, $813 million; and Humana, $650 million. The top 6 health insurers reported $6 billion in adjusted profits in the second quarter of 2017.

What are the myths?

• My insurance premiums are rising because of all the tort lawsuits.
• If we restrict victims’ ability to bring medical malpractice suits, healthcare would improve and its costs would be reduced.
• Because doctors are afraid of getting sued, they practice “defensive medicine.”
• Frivolous lawsuits clog the courts.
• Caps on damages would reign in “out of control” juries from awarding lottery-size sums to plaintiffs, cause malpractice premiums to fall and thereby reverse the doctor shortage caused by doctors fleeing the profession.
• Punitive damages are awarded too often and are too high.
• Juries are more likely than judges to award punitive damages.
• Damage awards are escalating out of control. The tort system has been turned into a lottery system favoring plaintiffs.
• Juries get caught up in the emotion of trial, ignore the law and find for sympathetic plaintiffs.
• Tort plaintiffs are using the courts to cripple American businesses.

In an article titled “Malpractice Myths” written by Bob Herbert on June 21, 2004, Mr. Herbert says, “It may be hard to understand why ‘tort reform’ is even on the national agenda at a time when insurance company profits are booming [Barry’s note: just like today], tort filings are declining, only 2% of injured people sue for compensation, punitive damages are rarely awarded, liability costs for businesses are miniscule, medical malpractice insurance and claims are less than 1% of all healthcare costs in America and premium-gouging underwriting practices of the insurance industry have been widely exposed.” These observations are no less true in 2018.

To discuss these issues, I’m going to group the myths in three categories:

1. Insurance rates go up because of frivolous lawsuits and lottery-sized awards.
2. Without the worry about medical negligence, healthcare would improve, costs would go down and doctors will not leave the profession.
3. The third myth involves the assertion that the jury system is broken. There are frivolous lawsuits, run-away juries giving lottery-sized awards, juries are stupid and these awards cripple American business.

Let’s talk about three examples: health insurance, medical malpractice and property and casualty insurance.

Health Insurance

The myth is that doctors who are afraid of being sued practice defensive medicine, thereby performing unnecessary tests, and thereby driving up health insurance costs. Let’s examine the facts: Three states, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina, passed tort reform laws that made it almost impossible to sue doctors or hospitals for emergency room treatment. Why emergency room treatment? The rationale was that ER doctors practice in an environment where information is scarce, the risk is high and technology is readily available. This is a confluence of factors that might lead to practicing “defensive medicine.” A major study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine of 3.8 million ER visits at almost 1,200 hospitals between 1996 and 2012 determined that doctors in the tort reform states, who were virtually immune to suit, ordered just as many MRIs and CT scans as doctors in the control states. Removing the risk of suit did not change behavior.

There is a second fallacy to the argument that tort reform reduces defensive medicine and thereby reduces health insurance costs. The Cleveland Clinic conducted a study, by Michael B. Rothberg, to measure how much defensive medicine exists and what it costs. The conclusion was that defensive medicine was 2.9% of the estimated $2.7 trillion US healthcare total (or $78 million). While not insignificant, that is a very small component of overall healthcare spending.

Medical Negligence

The attack here is two-pronged. The old standby, defensive medicine, is one. The second is that doctors are leaving the profession in droves and that smaller communities cannot get doctors to practice there. We have already debunked the “defensive medicine” argument. The argument for doctors leaving the profession is that frivolous suits clog the courts, so there is a need to make it harder for victims to file malpractice cases, and damage caps will reign in out of control juries who were awarding lottery-size sums to victims.

Let’s address doctors leaving the profession. Despite the claims of the AMA and state medical societies, the number of medical professionals in the United States continues to grow. And when it comes to access problems, the U.S. General Accounting Office finds those claims to be false or wildly exaggerated. Some rural and poor urban areas are underserved. Such areas often have trouble attracting other professionals too. In fact, the Counsel of Graduate Medical Education has opined that the relative shortage of health professionals in rural areas of the US is one of the few constants in any description of the US medical care system over the last half-century or more.

Let’s turn to frivolous lawsuits and out of control juries. Frivolous cases are cases that shouldn’t have been brought at all or that are rarer than most tort reform advocates admit. Studies have documented that the majority of such suits do not result in a payment to the plaintiff. And the contingency fee system helps weed them out. If a lawyer believes that he or she won’t get paid, they will not pursue the case. James Gattuso, then of the conservative Heritage Foundation, argued in an article for The Wall Street Journal titled “Don’t Rush to Condemn Contingency Fees,” that the contingency fee system ensures that injured persons who could not afford legal representation otherwise can obtain access to the legal system and also screen “baseless lawsuits” out of the system. The converse is the bigger problem—genuinely injured patients who can’t get redress because the courthouse doors have been shut to them.

Out of control juries are also a myth. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that the median medical malpractice award in a jury-decided case was $400,000. In bench trials where the judge serves as the trier of fact, the median award was $631,000. And judges are more likely to find in favor of the plaintiff. Plaintiffs win in tort trials 48% of the time. They are more likely to win in a court trial where the decision is made by a judge (57%). Here are the results of judge vs jury in selected types of tort trials:

• Premises liability: judge 52%; jury 38%
• Automobile cases: judge 63%; jury 57%
• Medical malpractice: judge 38%; jury 23%
• Products liability cases: judge 70%; jury 31%

Dr. David Studdert led a team of 8 from the Harvard School of Mental Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Risk Management Foundation in a study of 1,452 medical malpractice lawsuits. Ninety percent of the claims showed evidence of medical injury, which means they were not frivolous. Sixty percent of the cases were from physician wrongdoing. In a quarter of the claims, the patient died. When baseless medical malpractice suits were brought, the courts threw them out. In six cases where no injury could be detected, only token compensation was received. Where an injury resulted in treatment, but evidence of error was not clear, 145 of 515 (or 28%) received compensation. A bigger problem was that 236 cases, where there was evidence of error to patients by doctors, were thrown out of court. In the other 1,050 cases, the researchers found that the cases were decided correctly, with damage awards going to the injured and frivolous cases being dismissed.

Here’s what our nation’s trial judges think about the jury system. A 2000 survey sent to 1,000 trial judges, including every federal trial judge, revealed that:

1. Judges have a high level of day-to-day confidence in the jury system;
2. Only 1% of the judges who responded gave the jury system low marks;
3. Nine out of ten trial judges, who work closely with the jury system, think the system needs only minor tinkering, at best;
4. Overwhelmingly, state and federal judges have great faith in juries to solve complicated issues and
5. 90% of the judges responding said jurors show considerable understanding of legal issues involved.

And finally, statistics show that juries are generally conservative and reasonable and their decisions rarely differ from what a judge would decide.

A word about punitive damages. This argument is a non-starter. Punitive damages are very rare. They are only awarded in 3.3% of all tort trials won by plaintiffs. And in 1996, the average punitive damage award was $38,000, not the millions of dollars alleged. Judges were more likely than juries to award punitive damages. Judges in 1996 awarded punitive damages in 8% of all tort trials decided by judges in 1996. As stated earlier, juries awarded punitive damages in only 3% of all tort jury trials decided.

What is really expensive in medical malpractice? It is shoddy medical care. The obsession with tort reform has slowed down patient safety initiatives. Let’s start with anesthesiology. In the 1980s, following many large awards against the specialty, anesthesiologists revamped their procedures, created compulsory monitoring, increased and improved training, limited the hours their specialists could work without rest, redesigned machines and added safety features. Within 10 years, the mortality rate went from 1 in 6,000 to 1 in 200,000. Malpractice insurance rates fell to the lowest of any medical specialty.

But the tort reformer’s success has diminished the need by other specialties to take other self-policing reforms. Continuing along this vein, hospitals are dangerous. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine at the US Academy of Science published a study entitled “To Err is Human.” This study concluded that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients were killed (and many more injured) in hospitals each year because of medical errors. That is more than in car crashes and workplace accidents combined, and does not include deaths in doctors’ offices or clinics. By 2011, a study in HealthAffairs estimated the number of avoidable deaths was probably closer to one million. Then there was the study done by Harvard Medical Practice of 31,000 medical records. The records were reviewed by practicing physicians and nurses, people who would, by and large, be sympathetic to the demands of medical practice. The records went through rounds of review and negligence was only found if two doctors working independently came to the same conclusion. Even with this conservative approach, the study found that doctors were injuring one out of 25 patients. Only 4% of those patients sued.

What is needed is a crackdown on malpractice. When the American Medical Association speaks of a malpractice “crisis”, they are referring not to the people injured or killed by medical errors or the widespread failure to discipline negligent doctors (including many repeat offenders), but rather to the doctors’ increasing malpractice insurance premiums. So, not only are they trying to get off the hook for what they’ve done, but they’re targeting the wrong group as the source of their ills. It’s time for the doctors to blow the whistle on the insurance industry and their exploitive practices, as well as on the members of their profession who violate the maxim, “First, do no harm.”

Let’s call it what it is. This is all about greed! Tort reform leads to additional profit for the insurance industry, which is precisely the reason that the insurance industry is sinking so much money into its unrelenting campaign for reform.

Property and Casualty Rates

The first paragraph in this article presented the obscene profits being generated by health and liability carriers presently.

How do insurance companies profit? Most of the profit comes from investment income. Insurance companies generate revenue in the form of premiums paid. They hold these premiums until they make a payout to or on behalf of the policyholder. Between those two events, the money being held is called the “float.” (Before people had so many options to carry money electronically, American Express made more money from the “float” on travelers checks, the time between purchase and redemption than they did from money generated from use of their credit cards.) So, the “float” is invested. When the market is strong and/or interest rates are high, the companies make a nice return on their investments. In times like these, the insurance companies may even reduce their rates to attract more premium dollars to invest. This scenario is called a “soft” market.

So, what happens when the market declines? Investment income falls. Then insurance companies raise their rates or reduce coverage. This is a “hard market.” The US economy has experienced several of those in the last 40 years. These hard markets occurred in the mid 70s, mid 80s, 2002-2003 and from 2007-2009. These were the markets where insurance rates for doctors skyrocketed. So while the insurance companies and other tort reform proponents argue that litigation, frivolous lawsuits and run-away juries are to blame for insurance premiums going up, these increases are being driven by the insurance companies’ responses to the broader economic cycle. In fact, claims and payouts stayed flat or declined in each of the “crises.” Since insurers target the civil justice system rather than the economic cycle, tort reform solutions failed to reduce insurance rates. And what was the response of the American Insurance Association when presented with this empirical data? “Insurers never promised that tort reform would achieve specific savings.”

So, what is the solution? The insurance industry needs stronger regulation. Stop the insurance industry from price-gouging their policy holders, especially when industry profits rocket upwards. Doctors should re-direct their anger at the insurance industry (How many times have we heard doctors bristle at what they consider to be “health insurers practicing medicine?” Surely, they know who the real enemy is!) and better police their profession to remove the subset of doctors who repeatedly commit malpractice. Or are the doctors, like their legal counterparts, powerless in the face of the massive donations being given to lawmakers, who are so willing to accept the largess so that they can stay in office?

Tort reform is a myth, perpetuated by greed. How can any intelligent person argue in favor of these sham laws that serve to abridge our constitutional rights? These proposed laws are just another attack on the rights of the average American citizen. Who do we want to speak for us, a jury of our peers or large companies earning obscene profits?

^[1] Numbers based off the 2016 Annual Reports for these Insurance companies, which were calculated by Barry Chasen to equal a total combined net profit of $11.795B, which was rounded up to an even $12B.

Nestled between the Bronx and Manhattan, the most serene location I’ve ever found in New York City is the Harlem River at 6:00 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

The murky water reflected the impending sunrise off its oily sheen. After attaching the riggings to the shell and climbing in, both the stillness and the serenity of the river rippled away.

I rowed for three years in college. The dreaded two-a-days workouts and indoor erg pulls were the only downside to trolling between Yankee Stadium and the Broadway Bridge. At some point during my third year, I began to notice a dull ache in my hip after practice. Nothing some rest (and ice cream) couldn’t fix. As race season ramped up, the pain intensified and was less willing to subside with my self-prescribed therapy à la mode.

I sought treatment with the athletic department’s trainer. “Just ice it and it will go away,” they said. It didn’t. Back to the trainer’s office. “Have you tried heat? It will help.” The pain persisted. I then went to my family practitioner. “Have you tried a course of anti-inflammatories?” Yes, but just like everything else so far, no relief.

In the meantime, race season had ended, finals were approaching and I found I was having trouble walking back from the subway after work. I was given a referral to see an orthopedic surgeon. After performing a few quick tests, my orthopedic surgeon told me we needed an MRI and it was possible I had torn “something” in my hip.

Jumping Through Hoops for Insurance Authorization

The MRI order was promptly denied by my health insurance company. However, they approved an x-ray of my hip. My doctor and I agreed that although the MRI was what he had ordered, I should go ahead and get the x-ray taken.

Results: “Unremarkable.” Back to the doctor so he could inform my insurance company I needed an MRI. Again, it was denied with a note indicating it was “unlikely a 22-year-old female is having difficulty walking.” However, they approved a CT scan with contrast. Not a procedure I’d ever like to repeat, but I got it done (at, of course, the facility my insurance company identified).

Back to my surgeon who said, “We still really need an MRI to see what is going on.” Turns out, the CT scan had been inconclusive. On the plus side, they had injected some lidocaine and I was feeling great! (For a mere two days.)

The MRI was finally approved and done (again at a facility identified and approved of by my insurance company). The results were in. I had “an acetabular labrum tear and possible degenerative changes.” In English, please? I tore a small piece of cartilage near the femoral head and the pelvis, and there were indications of arthritis.

I was then informed the surgery did not come with a guaranteed success story. In fact, it was unclear whether the effects of the surgery would last a few months or the rest of my life. “What about if I want to have kids?” We don’t have the research. “Will I be able to go back to rowing?” Absolutely not. “What about hiking? Walking a strong dog on a leash?” You should be okay. “Dancing? Running? Bicycling?” All of those are fine—but no yoga or Pilates. After this surgery, you will be forever restricted from those activities and anything that isolates the hip muscles and joint. I was 22 and contemplating what my life would look like with a perpetual cloud of uncertain future surgery and/or restrictions.

I went for a second opinion (as you might imagine, not covered by my insurance company) and a review of all the studies performed on my hip. I went to a prestigious hospital in New York City to consult with a doctor that spends the large majority of his time on torn acetabular labrums. It turned out to be an incredible waste of time. I was seen by the doctor’s physician’s assistant, who listened to my description of the pain and its duration. The doctor himself came in for less than four minutes. During that time, he spoke rapid-fire and there was no time for any of my follow-up questions. He told me my MRI images were “far too fuzzy to even interpret,” and, “I’d have to measure your legs if I’m going to do this surgery—it might have to be a total hip replacement, I’m not sure yet,” and, “You’ll have to get new MRIs done at the place I like down on 58^th. Go there and have them sent back over to me and we’ll go from there.” And then he was gone. And so was I.

It was time to schedule surgery with my orthopedic surgeon, which my insurance company again denied. My doctor appealed the denial on my behalf, explaining I was an otherwise perfectly healthy 22-year-old who could not walk without pain.

Denied again. My surgeon called to explain the denial. He indicated that often the denials are decided by employees of the insurance company who have little to no medical training or background, but rather follow a set of parameters provided. He again appealed on my behalf, using the multiple studies as support for the surgery. At this point I was tired of the run-around and constantly having to rely on someone else to advocate on my behalf. A short time later, the surgery was finally approved.

Becoming My Own Advocate

I was elated to find out that not only was the surgery approved, but so were 24 visits to a physical therapist after surgery. The physical therapy was to be performed at a location entirely inconvenient to both my home and office locations. I did some research of physical therapy centers closer to my home and office and sought the advice of friends and officemates. I was fortunate enough to work as an administrative assistant in a law firm specializing in medical malpractice at the time—so the advice was well taken. I took that information and called my insurance company myself.

I explained that the location they had identified to attend physical therapy sessions was inconvenient and was not the location where I wanted to seek treatment. I gave them the name of the facility not two miles down the road from my office, which was accessible during my lunch hour and okay with my employer. I expressed my willingness to attend physical therapy (I really wanted to get better and get back to what I was doing) and that I took my healthcare very seriously. I was told a decision would be made but that there were no guarantees and I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

To their credit, the insurance company approved my physical therapy at the location I designated. I got the approval letter in the mail and it seemed like it was all coming together. The surgery was a few days away, and I had the physical therapy all lined up—now all I needed to do was rest, recover, and get back to my daily life. Until I scrutinized the letter—which indicated they had only approved 18 sessions of therapy at that location. I rooted through all my paperwork (and there was a mountain of it) to find the other approval letter that allocated 24 physical therapy sessions. I looked at them. And read them again. Read each one over—placed them side by side and upside-down. One said 24 sessions. The other 18. Apparently, asking to have the same treatment at a different facility resulted in the loss of 6 sessions.

I gave the papers to family members to read to ensure I wasn’t missing anything. I asked the attorneys in the firm to glance over them. Nobody could explain the loss of 6 sessions of physical therapy on the eve of surgery simply by switching locations, and I still had unanswered questions that no one seemed to be able to answer. But I knew someone who could.

A telephone call to my insurance company confirmed they had unilaterally decreased the number of sessions I needed post-surgery. I placed a call to my doctor’s office to let him know what had happened. He agreed the facility I was now going to attend was superior to the one identified by the insurance company, but there appeared to be no rationale as to why they slashed 6 sessions from my treatment. He told me not to worry—we would start with the 18 treatments, and he would prescribe more if I needed them.

The surgery was a success. I awkwardly clunked around on crutches for two weeks until my post-operative visit with the surgeon. He had the biggest smile and asked (with far too much enthusiasm) if I wanted to see the photos from the surgery. No, I did not. Turns out, it wasn’t a question; we were going to review them together. We looked at the tear—which was much worse than previously seen on the MRI. We looked at the femoral head, which had a lot of arthritic bone that was removed during the surgery. We reviewed every detail of the surgery—and I was finally given clearance to attend physical therapy and take a proper shower.

Hitting the Wall

After 18 sessions of lunch-hour physical therapy, the physical therapist and my doctor agreed I needed at least 18 more sessions to ensure proper healing and that the surgical repair would last. They both prescribed 18 more sessions. However, the insurance company had not made its decision regarding the continued treatment before my next scheduled session.

I asked the physical therapy facility if they would be able to provide treatment in the interim. They were willing to help, provide treatment and lend support wherever they could. A few days later, I received an approval letter for continued physical therapy sessions from the insurance company. Six more sessions. One-third of what had been prescribed by treating professionals.

I grumbled and fought with the insurance company, roping in my doctor and the physical therapist. The insurance company wouldn’t budge and refused additional treatments. 24 sessions in total were the most they would cover, and if I wanted to continue I certainly could—paying out of pocket, of course.

I attended my last 6 sessions, keeping in close communication with my surgeon and the physical therapist. I asked if I could have them draft and approve a home exercise program that I could do at home in lieu of paying out-of-pocket for continued visits. They both agreed this was an excellent idea—but if there was any pain I was to return to their care immediately.

Creating the Spark

While all of this was going on, I had been working in a law firm while trying to figure out whether I really wanted to go to law school. I had been working in the same firm for over seven years at that point, and I wanted to make sure that law school was really and truly my dream. Going through this experience only solidified my desire so that I could advocate for others. Along the way I learned how to effectively advocate for myself both in and out of a legal forum, and I am always enthusiastic about using my skill set to the benefit of others.

It’s been over eight years since the surgery. I can live without yoga and Pilates. My husband and I (attempt to) ride a tandem bicycle on occasion. I’ve hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail while pregnant. I chase after my son on uneven terrain and skillfully dodge dump-trucks in my living room.

It’s no longer the dark waters of the Harlem, but I’ve found serene places all over the DMV—and I can’t wait to find more.

Useful Tips for Those Dealing With Injuries:

• Be your own advocate.
• Talk to your doctor and ask questions.
• Bring a notepad with questions you have and space to write down what the doctor says.
• Discuss your symptoms with your doctor and ensure you both have a clear understanding of the course of treatment.
• Ask why your health insurance, or your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance (if you were hurt on the job), is denying treatment recommended by your doctors.
• Work with your treating providers to find alternatives while you’re waiting on authorization (or if authorization is denied).
• Be persistent. Sometimes, it will take several “nos” to finally get a “yes.”
• If insurance is requiring you to go to a provider that doesn’t work for you, see if there are alternatives available. Do the research to find a better location that accepts your insurance.
• Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor to advocate on your behalf for necessary treatment.