ER Access - Florida Worst In The Nation
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The news is not good if you need emergency room care in Florida.
Florida ranked dead last in a national report on the ability of someone in a dire medical need to access emergency care. The study comes from the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Most of us take it for granted that if we are in a medical emergency that we can burst through the doors of the ER and get immediate attention. That is not the time to find out that the finding of this study are true.
Part of the problem is that there are not enough emergency rooms in the state. While the rest of the nation has an average of 19 ERs for every million people, Florida has just seven. And they are crowded. With the numbers of uninsured and unemployed getting care in an ER, it's likely to be a very busy place when you are facing a heart attack or a traumatic injury.
Then number of doctors who are willing to work in an ER is also a problem. Many people accuse trial lawyers of driving doctors out of state because they are required to have relatively high medical malpractice insurance.
Say in Florida that the average medical liability insurance premiums are $41,000 for primary care and $171,000 for a specialists, more than twice the average across the states, according to the report.
Yet no one is looking at Big Insurance and questioning why the premiums are so high at a time when insurance giants are making record profits and very few people actually ever file a lawsuit because of medical malpractice. Why the disconnect?
The high premiums are just not justified by the actual number of lawsuits that are ever filed, estimated to be one in eight instances of medical malpractice. That is a myth that has been perpetuated by the industry that has the most to gain - the insurance industry.
This report suggests that part of the solution is to reduce the amount a consumer should be able to collect in a judgment for pain and suffering. But it's already down to a $150,000 cap for ER doctors, so who does that hurt? You!
If you are hurt by medical malpractice and have a life-time of costs associated with the injury or - heaven forbid are killed and your survivors must carry on without you- how far will $150,000 go for pain and suffering?
Until the medical profession begins weeding out the bad doctors, who generally are the repeat offenders - seeking some recovery through the court system is often the only road one can take to find some justice. Capping any awards only hurts the consumer who is already hurt through medical malpractice. #