The physicians of our local clinic recently sold their practice to our local hospital, for better financial management. The two are connected by a hallway.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/10/prweb8858326.htm

“According to data from the 2011 Medical Liability Monitor Annual Rate Survey, base-rate premiums for medical professional liability insurance (MPLI) continued their downward trend for a sixth consecutive year, while the MPLI industry had one of its best years in 2010 from a financial perspective, challenging the traditional definition of a soft market.”

We can expect a new round of calls of a crisis though, as insurers are going to be squeezed chasing ever declining premium dollars as more physicians move to larger, self insured groups or to hospital employment where the hospital has a stronger ability to negotiate premiums than the individual physician. You heard it here first – there will be a “crisis” by 2014, and the past 5 years of extreme insurer profitability will not be mentioned.

“In other words, a lot of people who don’t have a means to pay for their care are going to soon be sent somewhere else.”

Do people truly not have the means? Cannot even make payments, however small? Is the ED supposed to be free care?

“I call bullshit on that one.”

It would be more interesting to know if EMRs reduce the rate of medical malpractice, rather than claims. Only insurers care about claims. Physicians should care about the actual malpractice, most of which never sees a claim files.

” Now doctors who might otherwise provide free medical care to indigent patients in New Jersey have less of an incentive to do so.”

Why should people who give free care be immune for the damages caused if the care is negligent?

Your stats on your last blurb are not actual numbers. They’re from 2009. The methodology is odd, as it ignores downward trends in payments, actually declining from 2008 to 2009, and at times ignores previous years, but then at other times takes 5 year averages.