Insurance costs threaten specialists
by Marian Weeks Kansan staff writer
When Raymond Schwegler came to Lawrence to practice gynecology 55 years ago, he thought his patients, who were friends, would not dream of sung it.
Neurosurgeons, cardiac surgeons and obstetricians suffer the highest number of suits.
"I believe the tendency these days is for the relationship between doctor and patient to be more of an adversarial relationship in which the doctor is constantly wondering if this is the day his luck will be out," said Dr. Hobert. "The physician at Watkins Memorial Health Center. He retired in 1986."
Today, doctors have a one in nine chance each year of being sued, according to the Kansas Medical Doctors were sued last year.
"Fifty years ago there was no adversary tone to the relationship at all." he said.
In those days it cost $35 to deliver a baby — including nine months of prenatal care and a year of postnatal care, he said.
The cost of delivering a baby is now about $3,000.
Charles Yockey, chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said that his next annual malpractice insurance payment would be $12,000.
Insurance premiums for high-risk specialists can range from $40,000 to $85,000 a year. High-risk specialists include surgeons and gynecologists.
The specialists are sued more often than general practitioners because
patient dissatisfaction occurred more frequently.
"Experience has shown the majority of lawsuits are precipitated by a lack of communication," Yockey said. If a doctor doesn't have time to answer his patient's questions adequately, then he is too busy."
Mark Paraeger, a Lawrence surgeon, said a speaker at the Sunflower Winter Conference, held in Lawrence Jan. 27, 2013, that said in the next year, 79 percent of gynecologists, 50 percent of all neurosurgeons and 15 percent of all physicians would be sued.
"The destruction of the trust that doctor and patients have for each is fueled by that possibility of lawsuits." Praeyer said.
Praeger said topics of discussion among doctors have shifted from solutions to challenging cases to what they are going to do about liability insurance and how long they will be able to afford to practice medicine.
Many doctors have taken to practicing "defensive medicine," Praeger said.
Defensive medicine includes ordering additional, expensive tests, writing records to avoid lawsuits and against the possibility of being sued.
Praeger said this year that he paid $36,000 in liability and that he will owe about $50,000 when his next annual premium is due.
Physician insurance:
Premiums keep rising
Robert Conroy, director for the Meinenger Foundation's center for applied behavioral sciences, said that liability concerns were trou
Physicians are forced to continue paying higher insurance rates because of the alarming number of lawsuits brought against them by patients.
University Daily Kansan / Friday, February 17, 1989
Medical Protective Company*
Fire and Marine**
Insurance Company
Family practitioner:
delivers babies
$15,010
$19,989
Family practitioner:
doesn't deliver babies
$10,143
$10,192
Gynecology and
obstetrics
$67,748
$67,988
General surgery
$39,305
$39,582
Neuro surgery
$85,192
$85,619
Dermatology
$8,114
$8,235
Cardiac surgery
$53,550
$54,275
Source: Kansas Insurance Commission
Kansas Medical Society
*Ft. Wayne, Indiana **St Paul, Minnesota
Dave Eames/KANSAN
bling, in part because doctors go into medicine for altruistic reasons.
Conroy said that doctors take suits personally because medicine is a way of life for many of them.
"The families (of doctors) are greatly impacted — the wives, the kids," Corns said. "I think what we are doing is dismantling the finest medical system in the world piece by piece."
Martin Pernoll, executive dean of the College of Health Sciences, said that communication with a patient is
affected by the fact that a doctor's actions might be reviewed five years later in court.
Obstetrics results in a high number of suits because every couple wants to have a perfect baby and the human system is very imperfect, he said.
Major congenital malformations happen in 3.5 percent of the births, Pernoll said.
Parents' emotions also lead to suits, be said.
KU's day care situation not improving
"If we continue to put our children in unclea, unsafe child care environments today, they'll be the ones who need space in our prisons tomorrow," said Cindy Riley, chairman of the Classified Senate Committee to assess childcare needs of KU staff and faculty.
Last night's infant day care forum, in commemoration of the 17th anniversary of the February Sisters, presented problems facing child care at the University of Kansas and in the nation.
The February Sisters were 20 women and 4 children who peacefully took over and occupied a campus building in 1971 until some of their demands to aid the women's situation on campus
By Mary Neubader
Kansan staff writer
Diane Athes, one of the February Sisters who
recently returned to KU to complete her master's degree in business, related horror stories of what will happen when the sun sets.
"Nothing has changed at this University in terms of child care in 13 years," she said. "That's why we are so proud."
Riling said that when she and her husband first looked for child care for their children, they answered an ad in the newspaper that took them to a dirty, gloomy house. There, a woman told them she stripped all the children to their diapers when she was in the morning so their clothes wouldn't get soldered.
Riling was later able to enroll her children in local day care centers.
Marion O'Brien, assistant professor of human development and family living, said the infant care problem in Lawrence was serious but was not unusual in the United States.
"We're among the lucky few," she said. "Many parents are forced to put their children in unclean, sterile environments."
One thousand estimated infants are born in Lawrence Memorial Hospital every year, she said. Nationwide, 51 percent of mothers worked while their babies were less than 12 months old.
That means about 510 spaces are needed in Lawrence for infant care annually. There are 70 center-based spaces available, O'Brien said, and about 150 estimated in-home spaces.
by Mary Neubauer
Candy Seltman, director of the Shawnee Mission Medical Center Child Care Center, and Robin Colmer Peters, assistant director, presented a slide show and spoke about their on-site center.
Seltman said the center had been in the hospital for more than nine years.
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