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Massachusetts Patients Slowly Awaken to New
Reality: Costly Liability Premiums Limit Access to Care
By Tom Walsh
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Soaring Liability Rates: M.D.s and Patients
in Peril
James C. K. Wang, M.D.,
OB-GYN, Westfield
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Dr. Wang began practicing in Massachusetts
in 1991 but has decided to stop delivering babies as of March
31. He described the decision as "an enormous struggle"
because obstetrics is "a profession I love and have dedicated
so much time and effort to learn."
Were he to continue as an OB-GYN, Dr.
Wang's professional liability insurance would double
for 2003 to $60,000. While he will stop practicing obstetrics,
Dr. Wang said he will continue to practice gynecology, a specialty
regarded as much less risky by insurance carriers and thus
one that carries much lower insurance premiums.
Because of soaring insurance rates, Dr.
Wang says he needs to "restructure and devise a new strategic
plan for the survival of his practice."
Dr. Wang graduated in 1987 from the Tufts
University School of Medicine and practices obstetrics and
gynecology in Springfield and Westfield.
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At first, there seemed to be no cause for alarm.
On the Thursday after New Year's, 8-year-old Maggie Walsh was just
a few doors away from her Holyoke home, sliding down a neighbor's
small hill made slick with fresh snow. Only Maggie went a little
too fast, hurtling over a snowbank and landing headfirst on the
pavement. With a bad scrape above her eyebrow, Maggie walked the
short distance home.
"She kept complaining that her head hurt,"
said her mom, Dianne Walsh. As afternoon became evening, Maggie
asked her mom, "How did I get home?"
Dianne noticed her daughter's head was swelling
on one side, and Maggie vomited soon after. Dianne called the family
pediatrician who directed her to the emergency department.
A Bigger Shock Was Coming
Tests showed that Maggie had two skull
fractures and severe cranial bleeding. But Dianne and her husband,
Jeffrey Walsh, soon received a bigger shock.
"We assumed Maggie would be treated at
the trauma center at Baystate Medical Center. I was panic stricken
when we learned they were trying to get a helicopter to transport
Maggie to Hartford," Jeffrey Walsh said.
Short staffed after recently losing two neurosurgeons,
Baystate didn't have a specialist available to treat Maggie's injury,
underscoring the looming crisis in patient access to care brought
on by soaring medical liability insurance premiums. Already affecting
Springfield and vicinity, obstetricians and neurosurgeons are in
short supply there. And more physicians are considering whether
to stop providing high-risk services, retire early or leave Massachusetts
in search of a friendlier working environment. more
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