{"id":375,"date":"2019-05-18T16:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T16:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.doctorsdirectinsurance.sociallyinspire.com\/?p=375"},"modified":"2019-05-18T16:23:12","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T16:23:12","slug":"indiana-lawmakers-approve-higher-caps-on-med-mal-damages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/indiana-lawmakers-approve-higher-caps-on-med-mal-damages\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Lawmakers Approve Higher Caps on Med Mal Damages"},"content":{"rendered":"

At PracticeProtection, we are a staunch proponent of establishing fair damage caps on malpractice judgments. Having damage caps in place keeps rates lower, which makes it easier for physicians and insurers to do business, which lowers the price of healthcare substantially for consumers. In fact, some<\/a>\u00a0observers<\/a>\u00a0in the medical community worry that states in which damage caps have been struck down as unconstitutional could lead to doctor shortages in those states, which brings us to the rather interesting situation unfolding in Indiana.<\/p>\n

In March 2016, Indiana Lawmakers approved\u00a0Senate Bill 28<\/a>, which would increases the damage caps on medical malpractice for the first time since 1998 when the cap was set at $1.25 million. The new bill would raise the limit on total damages potentially awarded to $1.65 million in 2017, and to $1.8 million in 2019. While this initially sounds like bad news for physicians,\u00a0Senator Brent Steele<\/a>, the bill\u2019s main author, suggests that the legislature must keep pace with rising healthcare costs and inflation in order for the cap to remain constitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was extremely important for the General Assembly to pass this legislation because the current cap hasn\u2019t been updated in nearly 20 years, making our entire medical malpractice system vulnerable to a constitutional challenge,\u201d\u00a0Steele reported to Indiana radio station WBIW<\/a>, \u201cAfter dedicating more than 150 hours working on this legislation, I am pleased that all parties involved \u2014 including the Indiana State Medical Association, Indiana Hospital Association, Indiana Health Care Association, and Indiana Trial Lawyers Association \u2014 were able to reach an agreement so this important legislation can now move on to the governor\u2019s desk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Governor Pence signed the bill into law shortly thereafter, according to\u00a0several<\/a>websites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. Steele initially proposed increasing the damage caps every four years based on inflation, but that version of the bill met stiff opposition from the\u00a0Indiana State Medical Association<\/a>\u00a0as there was no stated final monetary cap set. A more forgiving version of that bill proposed the cap be adjusted annually until a final monetary cap of $2.25 million by 2031, but\u00a0IMSA lobbyists reported to the Indystar<\/a>, \u201cWe didn\u2019t like the series of increases, which took it all the way out to $2.25 million. So the fact that it goes one time after next year to $1.8 million, we did say that we would support that, and we do support that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several states have had their damage caps struck down entirely as unconstitutional, which puts doctors and insurers in a perilous situation as malpractice coverage rates tend to increase with said uncertainty.<\/p>\n

In fact, the\u00a0Indiana Trial Lawyers Association<\/a>\u00a0argued that the state\u2019s current damage limits makes the state attractive to bad doctors. Since there are damage caps in place, as well as the pooled resource of the Patient Compensation Fund, they argue that doctors with poor performance will gravitate to states where their exposure is the lower.<\/p>\n

A representative from the\u00a0Indiana Trial Lawyers Association reported to Indystar<\/a>that [Senate Bill 28] represents a compromise. \u201cIt represents a big step forward in addressing a pretty big deficiency that existed since the last [damage cap] increase 18 years ago,\u201d said Dan Ladendorf, an Indianapolis attorney.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. On the one hand, it may be tougher in the coming years for Indiana physicians to enjoy their relatively lower insurance premiums than in neighboring states. But on the other hand, there is no longer fear of the damage cap being struck down as unconstitutional, at least in the foreseeable future, which would remove damage caps entirely, and leave Indiana physicians in a worse position. According to\u00a0several<\/a>websites<\/a>, the nonpartisan group,\u00a0Legislative Service Agency<\/a>, does not believe that the new bill will increase current premiums, because most malpractice awards are taken from Indiana\u2019s Patient Compensation Fund, which we discussed in\u00a0this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At PracticeProtection, we are a staunch proponent of establishing fair damage caps on malpractice judgments. Having damage caps in place keeps rates lower, which makes it easier for physicians and insurers to do business, which lowers the price of healthcare substantially for consumers. In fact, some\u00a0observers\u00a0in the medical community worry that states in which damage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.practiceprotection.com\/physicians\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}