Please help Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates work toward a solution of the crisis in medical liability insurance.

Right now, this medical office, along with many others across the state, is facing a crisis that could affect your health care, and prevent us from providing medical care.

We are working diligently to convince Governor Ed Rendell and our elected officials to reform the current medical liability insurance system. Medical offices like ours have to pay exorbitant premiums, with increases in the 60 to 70% range. Some practices cannot obtain liability insurance at all, and are being forced to shut down their practices.

OUR STATUS:
Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates’ medical liability insurance HAS been renewed for 2005. This means we can continue to provide comprehensive neurological care for our community, and for the patients of Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster Regional Medical Center, and Ephrata Hospital. As the Regional Trauma Center, Lancaster General Hospital must have the availability of neurosurgeons, and Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates is the primary provider of neurosurgical care in Lancaster County.

We are dedicated to continuing our comprehensive care of patients with serious brain and spine injury or illness, as well as those with neurological conditions like headache, stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy.

But while the crisis may seem averted, it is only a temporary fix. No permanent solution is insight. Due to the current medical liability problem, we are finding it increasing difficulty to recruit neurosurgeons or neurologists. At the same time, each neurosurgeon and neurologist at Lancaster NeuroScience & Spine Associates must evaluate the wisdom of staying in Pennsylvania under the current system.

THE PROBLEM:
Doctors in Pennsylvania, by law, must have medical liability insurance to practice medicine. But the cost of this medical insurance is so high that it is cutting into our ability to pay our staff, buy supplies, and keep this office open. The insurance costs are high because of lawsuit abuse, sky-high awards from juries, and a broken down medical liability insurance system.

Pennsylvania doctors pay some of the highest medical liability insurance rates in the country. For example, average liability insurance in Illinois costs $16,000, while in Pennsylvania, the same coverage may cost as much as $250,000. At the same time we receive some of the lowest reimbursements from insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. We are being squeezed between these two factors.

The state of California enacted tort reform legislation to limit jury awards in recent years, and the result was that their physicians experienced ONLY a 167% increase in premium costs. This may sound high, but it is much more bearable than what happens when there are no caps on awards. In the majority of other states, which have no reform, premiums increased 505%over the same period of time.

A Scranton, PA, neurosurgeon and current president of the Pennsylvania Neurosurgical Society, saw his liability insurance premiums increase from $70,000 a year to a proposed $200,000 for 2003. He has now moved his practice to Hagerstown, MD, where his premium is $14,000 a year. Many of his patients drive 200 miles from Scranton to Hagerstown to see him.

How this problem can affect you:
Our practice, along with the entire medical community of our county and state, want the public to be totally aware that this has reached the crisis stage.

When Pennsylvania loses neurosurgeons and neurologists, and it cannot attract and retain others to take their place, the impact on patient care is clear. If doctors cannot obtain affordable insurance, patients will no longer be able to get the care they need. There are currently less than 3,000 neurosurgeons practicing in the United States, less than there were a decade ago. Pennsylvania deserves better than that.

What can you do?

PLEASE HELP US –
CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND YOUR LEGISTATORS
Contact Governor Ed Rendell and your legislators. We are providing a sample letter and the list of appropriate addresses. Please take a few moments and mail your support letter today. You will be telling your elected representatives that it is urgent that they support Pennsylvania doctors. We need laws passed to give us immediate relief from high insurance costs, to reform our medical liability system, and to preserve the sacred doctor-patient relationship.

• Go on-line to http://capwiz.com/pamedsoc to e-mail your legislators.

For more information on the crisis in Pennsylvania’s health care system:
• Contact the Pennsylvania’s Medical Society’s Liability Reform Action Line at 1-800-566-8678 or go to www.pamedsoc.org.