TALLAHASSEE (AP) -- Congressional auditors say they can't find substantiation for claims by doctors in Florida and other states that their high insurance rates are widely jeopardizing access to health care.
But Florida doctors who pushed hard for limits on lawsuit damages to bring down their insurance premiums said they stand by reports that large numbers of physicians are cutting back their practices.
"We have the affidavits that show physicians were reducing their practices," Florida Medical Association spokeswoman Lisette Mariner said Friday. The organization collected sworn affidavits earlier this year from 1,600 doctors who said they were altering or leaving their practices because of high insurance costs.
But a study released last week by the congressional General Accounting Office that looked at Florida and eight other states cited "localized but not widespread access problems." The report said those instances "often occurred in rural locations, where maintaining an adequate number of physicians may have been a long-standing problem."
Congressional investigators also found that "some reports of physicians relocating to other states, retiring or closing practices were not accurate or involved relatively few physicians."
The study did find that the growth in recent years in premiums and payments by insurance companies was slower in states that have enacted limits on malpractice awards, as Florida did in a special session last month.
But the GAO study said it could not determine whether the differences were the result of the state-passed laws or other factors.
The Legislature, spurred by Gov. Jeb Bush, approved a cap of $500,000 in noneconomic damages, such as for pain and suffering, in most malpractice claims against doctors.
GAO investigators also cited inaccuracies in claims that Lee and Collier Counties in Florida no longer had any practicing neurosurgeons.
Mariner responded that the medical association had warned not that there were no neurosurgeons there, but that there weren't any pediatric neurosurgeons, and said the FMA stands by that assertion.
"Reports of physician departures in Florida were anecdotal, not extensive, and in some cases we determined them to be inaccurate," the congressional investigators said. The report also called into question complaints about difficulties in attracting new doctors to Florida.
"Over the past two years, the number of new medical licenses issued has increased and physicians per capita has remained unchanged," investigators wrote.
Read more State Legislation online
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
68° F
66° F
69° F
