Malpractice

[NotACreativeMemberName]

Hey Internet,

I am an M3 excited to go into Ob/Gyn, and I wanted to learn more about the business aspects of the field so have a glimpse of the bigger picture about this awesome specialty.

I was wondering if anyone knew where to lookup malpractice fees state-by-state; not to dissuaded me from a geographic location but to help make informed decisions about my surroundings. I noticed a similar post back in 2007, but I was wondering if anyone in 2015 had some guidance on this topic. Unfortunately, we don't talk about the financial aspects of becoming a physician at my medical program.

Also, does anyone use SDN anymore? 2007, srsly?

Thanks y'all.

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[sia_simba]

I am not aware of any master list of malpractice fees state by state. Usually in any given state, there are a few malpractice insurance that does medical. However, business of medicine goes beyond malpractice insurance. Its either you have it, or you don't... not something you can learn from MBA school unfortunately. If you are in NYC, its going to be a dog eat dog world. =)

I can only speak clearly for NYC. There are 3-4 private prominent med-mal insurance co., a govnt insurance med-mal, and an educational med-mal. Unless you work for an FQHC, or state/city run hospital/facility, you cannot get government insurance. The educational med-mal is with the big hospital system like Columbia health care system. It is also connected with state run programs. Then there are MLMIC, PRI, RRG, and a few smaller insurance co.

They take into consideration length of year in practice, number of cases named, number of cases settled, etc. I know for MLMIC, 1st year out as an Attending, they will give you 1/2 price, which is about $90,000 for occurrence full ob/gyn. Then it goes back to about $170,000 to $180,000 occurrence full ob/gyn without any cases. I had one Attending whose malpractice was $300,000. If you are only going to do GYN only, its about $90,000. If you want to do minor GYN and low-risk OB, we call it the FP-OB malpractice, its about $40-45,000.

NJ and Penn malpractice premiums aren't much different unfortunately.

California is about $60,000+ for occurrence full ob/gyn, however they require for you to be board certified in order to accept some insurance plans. Other states will vary depending on tort reform laws. Florida don't necessarily require you to carry malpractice from last I heard, however, you do need some substantial amount of money in order to stay in practice.

You practice OBGYN because you like it and want to, shouldn't be for the malpractice. Unfortunately, its going to be a numbers game, Unless you are in a state that has tort reform or smaller community. If you are in a big metropolitan area, the more deliveries you do, the more chances you have of getting sued.

As one of my mentor once told me "If you've never perforated a uterus, you haven't done enough D&C".

Good Luck!

Disclaimer: Above med-mal insurance co. names are only for reference purposes in order to inform the public of the different co. existence. The financial numbers are roughly and in no way should reflect the actual policy amount that would be given by the insurance co. That is dependent on their underwriter. This post is in no way and advertisement for any of the private med-mal co. mentioned above.

 

[22031 Alum]

I'm faculty at a state university program as my only job out of residency, so I can't give you too much helpful info re: shopping for malpractice coverage. I definitely wouldn't let it decide where you train.

 

[Global Disrobal]

Unless you plan on going into solo or small group practice, it doesn't matter much as the institution or your group pays for it, or has it's own insurance trust. I'm in a group practice, in Texas where there is tort reform, and overall it's not much point of discussion. I know in Maryland (few years back in training), the annual cost I used to hear my attending discuss were in the 90-140K range.

With that said, as the previous poster mentioned, this should not be a top 3-5 determining factor for choosing a specialty especially considering that medicine in general is moving toward larger groups and hospital owned models.

Good luck