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TEXAS MEDICAL DREAM TEAM: COME ONE COME ALL. First invitation goes to the Doctor Who Couldn't Count

By Steve Lombardi

I feel badly with feeling good about Texas having tort reform that will attract all the Iowa doctors to Texas that make the biggest mistakes. I'm hopeful that doctors in Iowa who commit the most malpractice errors and therefore find their malpractice insurance premiums increasing will find the Texas protectionist legislation particularly appealing.

Before my friend, Brooks Schuelke reads this blog I'm going to apologize to him; not because of what I'm saying is hurtful but because he lives in Texas; a state where they reward doctors economically when they make mistakes. The way insurance is supposed to work is to have insurance premiums increase to cover the cost of those mistakes. You make more mistakes and the insurance premium for malpractice increases accordingly. But the Texas legislature changed all that, by not requiring poor medical judgment to cost the doctors and hospitals more. Now that cost has been passed on to the patients who suffer from those mistakes.

Patients like Mr. David Fitzgerald know all too well what I'm talking about. Utah and Hawaii are trying to compete with Texas for the best of the worst. Poor poor

Brooks has to expose his wife and children to the greater and greater risks of medical mistakes as more and more members of the medical dream team accept the invitation to practice in Texas; a state where there are few economic incentives not to make mistakes.

WARNING: If you are going to have surgery or check into a Texas hospital you should really read this.

Here is how all of this works. The Texas legislature passed a law limiting how much recovery patients could receive from doctors who make mistakes when they operate and make a mistake. So if the doctor you choose to do the operation botches it the Judge will take away the part of the verdict that you need the most; the quality of life damages. The doctor gets to buy a new car or third vacation home and you get to pay for his mistake. Essentially the legislature now requires the patient to insure themselves for the economic loss of the quality of life damages they suffer when a medical mistake is made. The legislature was hoping, no guarantee here, that the cost of medical malpractice insurance would be reduced for physicians who make the most mistakes. It's a great law for physicians who aren't very good at what they do; which includes operating on you. This law will do more for Texans they can imagine.

For one thing certain physicians will be attracted to practice in Texas. Well not all physicians will be attracted to practice in Texas. Some more than others though will be attracted to Texas. Those physicians with high malpractice premiums will flock to Texas. The lower malpractice premiums subsidized by injured patients is very attractive to physicians with the highest malpractice rates. Just keep in mind that those higher malpractice premiums go along with higher rates of medical practice mistakes. But so what? Think of all the money the legislature told you would be saved.

Well, maybe that's not exactly right. Maybe money isn't' being saved at all, but merely shifted to the patients. WHATEVER! It doesn't matter because the physicians will be saving money and Texas will have more physicians flocking to Texas to take advantage of all those patient subsidized mistakes.

Because this is such a good idea for Texas, and who knows maybe even Hawaii, these next few posts will point out the kinds of physician practice and medical mistakes that Texans can expect to see more of.

The first invitation to join the Texas dream team should be sent to the Kentucky doctor that can't count. Sophia Savage the patient might even pay for a one-way ticket to send the entire surgical team that left a sponge in her abdomen during her hysterectomy surgery. The sponge later lodged and matted to her lower intestines requiring the doctors to remove 49 centimeters of her small intestines. The fact we all learned to count in kindergarten isn't really all that important in Texas. To get on the dream team in Texas you need only be able to count on your malpractice premium being lower.

'A Kentucky jury has awarded $2.5 million to a married couple in a medical malpractice lawsuit this week.

In 2001, Sophia Savage underwent hysterectomy surgery at Three Rivers Medical Center, where she also worked as a nurse. Sophia and her husband Darrell Savage alleged that a sponge used during the surgery was left behind in Sophia's abdomen and was not discovered until 2005 when she received an X-Ray following complains of pain.

During surgery to remove the sponge, doctors discovered that it had lodged and matted to her lower intestines. In order to remove the sponge, doctors needed to remove 49 centimeters of Sophia Savage's small intestine which her medical malpractice lawyer says has left her suffering from "constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, depression and anxiety."'

This is such a great nation. The first invitation to join the Texas Dream Team will need to be sent to Kentucky to the doctor and surgical staff that can't count.

I'll be covering this for several weeks on my afternoon posts. The list is long and distinquished but we won't run out of energy or envelopes before all invitations are mailed. So come join us and remember, everything they do in Texas is big; even when making mistakes.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Steve Lombardi

Full post as published by Des Moines Personal Injury Lawyer on March 18, 2009 (boomark / email).