6
Thursday, October 2, 1975
University Daily Kansan
Malpractice policing by doctors said needed
By GREG HACK
Stricter regulation of the medical profession and insurance companies would help relieve problems concerning mpathe practice suits, according to Lee J. Dunn, legal counsel for the KU Medical Center.
Dunn said recently it was unrealistic to expect the number of suits to decrease unless the number of medical injuries was reduced.
"The medical profession needs to police itself," he said. "There are 2,400 physicians in Kansas and you rarely hear of any disciplinary action being taken against a doctor . . . the bad doctors are allowed to practice."
He said licensing and review boards were afraid of being sued for defamation of character if they took action against a doctor.
MEMBERS OF SUCH boards should be exempted from laws so they wouldn't be
afraid to "throw out the bad docs," he said.
afraid to "throw out the bad docs," he said. Dunn, speaking to students in a contemporary medical issues class, said only one doctor had been removed from the Massachusetts Medical School after more than 18,000 physicians, he said, and the one who was expelled was removed because he said unnecessary surgery was being done.
The general quality of medical care in the United States is quite good, he said, but too many cases of malpractice caused by gross negligence occur.
The malpractice problem is compounded by insurance companies that "are pulling the rip-off of the century," he said. Although a few companies are losing money in some cases, the malpractice insurance, most companies make profits on recent price increases.
"INSURANCE COMPANIES are financing the building booms in almost every major city. Hancock and Prudential are fighting to see who can build the tallest
phallic shape. They can do this because they're making money hand over flat and they're not doing that by losing $65 million a year on malpractice insurance."
He said the government should make more companies offer malpractice insurance, increasing competition. Only 22 major companies provide insurance, and only eight are major companies.
Union plans additions more student services
By DIERCK CASSELMAN
A proposal for the Kansas Medical Association to form its own insurance company might be a good idea, he said, because it would provide competition for private companies and economic incentive for doctors to police themselves.
Staff Writer
When the Memorial Corporation Board accepted the report of its Committee on Purpose and Long Range Development (CPLRD) Saturday, it set into motion plans to make broad changes in programming and the physical structure of the Kansas Union.
The report, which took 18 months to complete, is an evaluation of the status of the Union's programs and services and is also a comprehensive plan for the Union's development, Evelyn Swartz, Memorial Corporation Board president, said Saturday.
Swartz, who was CPLRD chairman before her election as the board president last spring, she said she thought the report was the first of its kind for the Union and would be a handbook for moulding the Union's services to the University's needs.
"If the doctors had their own insurance group, it would be in their interest to weed out the incompetent doctors," he said. "In such a system every bad doctor who generates a malpractice suit would raise premiums paid by all of the other doctors."
The report is based on a survey administered by the College Union Evaluation Systems (CUES), Frank Burge, Union director, said. The survey was to determine how often students used the Union and students, and dislikes of the Union's Burge, the College Union asked specific questions about proposed projects such as a satellite union.
The CUES report is valuable because
it relevant and curate, and reflective of
what the CUES does.
THE 800 STUDENTS participating in the survey were a good cross sample of the university's student population. Burge and Tolbert's RESULTS should be 92 per cent accurate.
Burge said the management was currently evaluating the suggestions
The Memorial Corporation Board's action Saturday transfers action on the report's suggestions to the Union's management, he said.
The management already has put many of the report's suggestions into effect, but
THE BOOKKEEPING SYSTEMS of the Union Bookstore and the Union have been combined in newly remodeled offices on the first floor, now called level four.
Burge said he thought two of the most exciting CPLRID proposals were for a satellite union and expansion and for the entrance and first floor of the Union.
Remodeling of the check cashing service was completed at the beginning of the fall semester and the sale of travelers checks was began in September at the business office.
The CUES study reported that 89.9 per cent of the students surveyed favored a satellite union with lounges and study areas, sunny sales and food service, Burge
"The wants are one thing," she said, and the willingness to pay for them is another. "We're all tired."
pay a semester fee to support the cost of a satellite union, he said.
The CPLRD report recommended construction of a 25,000 square foot satellite union at an estimated cost of $1.7 million.
STUDENT FEES WOULD BE USED to
project debt and annual
costing costs
The idea of a satellite union isn't new, burgee said. Student referendum in 1970 made it possible.
The plan in 1970 was to build a 40,000 square foot satellite union at an estimated cost of $268 million.
Influenthreats to make the proposed satellite union infeasible, he said. Concerns were raised by a group hard, he said. It also has pushed loan interest rates from 5 to 8 or 10 per cent, he said. Another construction project, the Kodama, will be funded by the Union, will begin in May 1976. Burge said.
THE ENTRANCE TO THE music and browsing rooms will be changed to provide an area for temporary organization tables which are now set up in the Union lobby.
The total lobby renovation project will extend over three summers. Burge said.
Burge said that rainy days showed the inadequacies of the portice of the Union
It will include relocation of the television room, isolation of the carpeted commons area and the removal of the central staircase in the old section of the Union.
For example, on Tuesday, when over 8,000 students rode on campus buses, large crowds of students gathered under the Union's main entrance, be said.
Changes to the front of the Union are last on the remodeling list, he said, and are part of the current plan.
Halls request parking space
A request for additional parking spaces for residents of Watkins and Miller scholarship halls will be considered by the Parking and Traffic board today. Hugh
A petition requesting additional parking space was wasted as circulation earlier the semester in 2017.
Residents said they circulated the petition because many scholarship hall residents worried about their safety as they walked to and from the parking lots.
The crowded parking conditions in Alumni Place parking lot, too poor lighting and overcrowding.
The petition specifically requests 11 spaces in the parking lot in front of Watkins and several spaces in the lots by Fraser and Blake halls.
DUNN SAID HE THOUGH health care could be improved and malpractice reduced by greater use of health maintenance practice (JMU), which emphasize preventive medicine.
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"Health care costs are going to continue to be high until we realize it's more economical to spend money for being well than to spend money to treat being ill," he said. "Our system is based on treating people after they get sick instead of before."
An HMG, Dunn said, is a pre-paid group health plan that requires people to have insurance.
DUNN, WHO HAS TESTIFIED before a Kansasan joint legislative committee on malpractice, said he was against laws limiting physicians from malpractice practices.
There are a few HMOs operating, he said, but it's difficult to start one because a pool has been built.
"I think it is terribly inequitable to give doctors special legal treatment," he said.
"From a practice standpoint, such lawsuits are highly unrealistic and have a lawsuit brought against them anyway."
He said medical societies were wrong in saying that the number of malpractice cases had increased because lawyers were out to make money.
Alkaltha a winning lawyer usually gets a percentage of the settlement, known as a contingency fee, Dunn said this wasn't enough reason to bring most suits.
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said. "A lawyer has to have a pretty sure winner with a large settlement before he'll win."
"It costs a lawyer $2,000 on the average and a malpractice suit to court." he
Dunn said elimination of contingency fees wouldn't reduce the number of malpractice suits, but denying a lawyer a chance at a percentage of the settlement would mean in legal help out of the reach of those too poor to pay normal fees.
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