Greedy Insurance Companies Squeeze Doctors to Pad Their Own Pockets

Jack Landskroner

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The Insurance Industry has misrepresented that an increase in claims and injury awards have caused a so call " insurance crisis" prohibiting carriers from making a profit and in turn resulting in a skyrocketing increase in doctors malpractice insurance premiums. This is the classic Insurance spin and doctors as well as the general public have bought it hook, line and sinker. The industry's media arm has even gone so far as to put in writing these false claims. The truth is a far cry from what the greedy insurance companies want consumers to believe.

A new study by Dartmouth College researchers suggests that huge jury awards and financial settlements for injured patients have not caused the explosive increase in doctors' insurance premiums. ''The simple explanation that comes to mind is the underwriting cycle. If they're making less money from the investment side of things, it's going to cause [insurance companies] to raise rates."

On the flipside, doctors continue to receive lower reimbursements for the services they provide. Reimbursement cuts going into effect across the country are affecting medical practices and causing doctors threaten to limit new patients or drop out of the insurance networks making cuts.

Physicians have grave concerns about the future of their practices.

"I'm trying to run a business here. My rents go up, my employees demand salaries, my gas prices go up, my malpractice rates go up, but my reimbursement rates go down -- that's no way to run a business," said [Dr. Stephen Rockower, a Rockville orthopedist]. "If I'm losing money on each visit, seeing more patients doesn't help me." ..."Ultimately, patients are going to be harmed when they can't find doctors or doctors leave the state or retire or go bankrupt,"

The insurance industry is simply maximizing profits at the expense of the medical community and to the detriment of the consumer in need of medical care and treatment. While profit is certainly not a dirty word, its time that the insurance industry come clean with the medical community and the general public. It is not the lawyers that are driving doctors from the practice of medicine but the insurance companies. Rather than attacking trial lawyers perhaps the medical community should consider embracing trial attorneys who would willingly fight side by side with doctors against the greedy insurance industry in order to disclose the truth about why doctors are leaving the practice of medicine.