Day on Torts

In recent days I have shared several posts (here, here, here, and here) concerning the substantial reduction in the number of medical malpractice cases filed in Tennessee since the enactment of the law that mandates pre-suit notice and filing of a certificate of good faith.

Thus, it is not surprising that State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company, the doctor-owned medical malpractice insurer that insures the vast majority of non-university based physicians in Tennessee, has slashed medical malpractice insurance rates.

The average rate decrease, effective for renewals on or after May 15, 2010, is $23.1% at $1M / $3M insurance policy limits.    There are different rates of decreases depending on specialty, dividend status, limits, years in practice, and other factors. 

This is Part 4 of my report on medical malpractice filings in Tennessee for 2010.  (Here is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) Today, I examine the county where I live, Williamson County.    

Williamson County, Tennessee is on the southern border of Davidson County, which is the home of our state capital, Nashville.  In 2010 Williamson County had 180,891 residents.  Almost 90 percent of those residents were white and about 5% of them were African-American.  The average household income was almost $122,000 per year and the per capita annual income was about $42,000.    Over 56% of the people in the county have attained at least one college degree.

Williamson Medical Center is a 185-bed hospital in Franklin.  It provides comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care.  It has an active emergency room and has physicians on-staff in some 36 specialties.

 This is Part 3 of my report on medical malpractice case filings in Tennessee.  (Click to read Part 1and Part 2.)  Here are the case filings for some of the larger counties in the state for the year ended September 30, 2010:

Yesterday I wrote about the decrease in the number of medical malpractice case filings since the new law requiring pre-suit notice and a certificate of good faith went into effect October 1,2008.    As I mentioned, the total number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed for the one-year period ending September 30, 2010 was 313.

Tennessee has approximately 6,100,000 people.  Assuming that there was a single plaintiff in each case (which is almost always true except for loss of consortium claims in injury cases) simple math tells us that there was one claim filed for every 20,000 Tennesseans.

There are 137 hospitals in the state with about 20,000 hospital beds.  There are 317 nursing homes with 36,276 beds.  There are about 18,560 non-federal licensed physicians. There are also almost 62,000 registered nurses.    There are 954 physicians’ assistants, 4853 nurse practitioners and 4,196 dentists.  Each of these providers is a potential defendant in a malpractice case.   Add to this some number of x-ray techs, ambulance drivers, etc.

The preliminary numbers are in for 2010 and demonstrate that the statute providing for the giving of notice and filing a certificate of good faith has dramatically decreased the number of medical malpractice filings in Tennessee.  The new law came in to effect on October 1, 2008 and was modified effective July 1, 2009.

You may remember that for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2008, 644  medical malpractice lawsuits were filed in Tennessee.   A whooping 140 of those were filed in September 2008, some of which were filed  as lawyers took action to avoid the burden and risks of filing cases under the new law.  

 For the year ending September 30, 2009,  the first year that the new law was in effect, available data indicates that only 263 medical malpractice lawsuits had been filed.  Because  there were a larger-than-usual number of filings before the new law came into effect,  it is fair to say that filings were lower than one would expect in an ordinary year.