In Florida, doctors can choose not to carry malpractice insurance if they meet certain criteria. The doctor who’s doing my biopsy does not carry malpractice insurance.
I’m assuming doctors must prove they have the financial wherewithal to handle any lawsuits, correct? If, for some reason, something goes horribly wrong, am I SOL in seeking compensation from him?
Is this legal in all states?
I’m not familiar with any laws of Florida, much less medical licensing issues, even much less insurance questions (other parts of my department handle those). This being said, it’s obvious that this is not legal advice, all other disclaimers, etc.
If something does go wrong, the matter of the doctor not having insurance does not preclude you from filing a claim or seeking a claim. The lack of insurance means that you have one less avenue, and according to prevailing litigating though, less of an overall remedy available to you (because insurance companies have deeper pockets than insurance companies).
If you’re wondering about the risk of seeing a doctor with no insurance, that is an issue that really only you can answer. There is an inherent risk in all transactions, whether social, business or medical, and like with all transactions, something unintentionally can go wrong, even with the most strident of professionals. In terms of risk management, unless this doctor is super-wealthy, in general, all things being equal, you take on less risk by seeing a doctor with actual insurance.
Another thing to consider is that the licensing board of FL might have different/more stringent/more comprehensive methods to licensing its doctors such that they feel that insurance is not mandatory. In combination with this thought, the FL legislature might make make the it harder to establish a level of negligence necessary to file a claim.
If things do go horribly wrong, perhaps you or your estate can take comfort to be a symbol of change for the current system. 
When I worked for a PPO network, we required all providers to carry insurance, other than in Florida. In Florida, by state law, we were not allowed to require it. I always thought it was sketchy, personally. We required 1,000,000/3,000,000 in general, although some states had other maximums by law. Generally speaking, if you sue an individual, even a wealthy one, 1,000,000 might be difficult to collect, whereas it should be easier from the company.
I don’t know how common it is for doctors to not carry insurance in Florida. If you’re close to you GP or Ob/gyn, you might want to ask their opinion. Also, I’m not sure about your state, but in Massachusetts the state had a web site where you can check to see what type and how many malpractice claims have been laid against the provider and what the outcomes were.
I’m not worried about finding another doctor…I was just wondering what the process was behind a Florida doctor not having malpractice insurance, and what happens if they get sued.
A lawyer may come in with a more detailed understanding, but from what I’ve heard from some very knowledgable MD/JD’s, your general analysis is correct.
I will be orders of magnitude more difficult to collect, and the amount is likely to be orders of magnitude less, if you are suing a physician directly than his or her insurance company. To that end, there will be less financial recourse to you if that physician makes a mistake or you are otherwise injured in a way that you might otherwise have been able to collect a tort payment.
Several states have begun to permit physicians to, “go bare,” (without insurance) as an end-run means of tort reform, particular for high-risk, high-premium specialities such as OB/GYN, especially in states where the market conditions for practicing OB/GYN became so adverse that people simply couldn’t find doctors at all.
Rather than pay $500,000 per year in medical malpractice insurance they choose to practice without insurance knowing that outside of examples of gross negligence or bad behavior on their part, they’ll probably be okay. They won’t be responsible for $16 M judgements against them because they delivered a child that happened to have cerebral palsy.
Well, sort of. “No malpractice insurance” doesn’t mean “can’t be sued and found liable,” although it does make it less likely that a jury would award an outrageous sum of money on the logic that the insurer, not the individual, will pay.
My understanding is that many doctors who don’t carry malpractice insurance require that patients agree to submit to arbitration in case of a dispute (rather than going to court) or to agree to a limit on the amount of compensation they can seek in court (typically far lower than a jury might be persuaded to award).
I don’t know about Florida but I know that in Virginia, you can’t mention the insurance to the jury.
Something else to consider…a doctor without insurance might fight the case alot harder then a doctor who knows that if he loses, insurance will pick up the tab. So, not only will it be harder to collect, it might be harder to get the judgement as well.
Looking at it from the other side, a doctor without insurance may not be able to pay a lawyer to fight, so he might be more eager to settle, since even if he wins the case, he will end up paying lawyer fees.
As for Virginia, since there is a cap on both economic and noneconomic damages, it really doesn’t matter as much if insurance is mentioned to the jury.
Personally, I would never go bare because I have no dependents and unless I want to put all of my possessions in trust for the cats, I stand to lose everything. I’ve learned over the years never to underestimate the sympathy factor with juries; I’ve seen many physicians who did nothing wrong lose cases because of a bad outcome that was not their fault.
I have no knowledge on this subject, just talking out of my ass at 2 am, but to me it seems like not having insurance might have some advantages. It means if the doctor really screws someone up, his ass is on the line, right? Maybe that doctor will be a little more careful. Although, I’m not sure how true that would be. Perhaps he would just declare bankruptcy and live fine more or less; also I don’t know if it’s the doctor who would be personally responsible, or the doctor’s office, HMO or what.
As someone who works in the medical field but is not a doctor, my WAG would be that insurance coverage wouldn’t be a big effect on the doctor’s level of carefulness. Even having a suit filed against a doctor (yes, even if it’s dropped or dismissed, or the doctor wins) is a big red flag - for instance - to any new hospital that the doctor might apply to for privileges and involves lots of explanatory paperwork. Same deal with complaints. The level of malpractice insurance required, and the costs involved, is driving doctors in “high-risk” fields like neonatal obstetrics and neurosurgery out of areas with higher insurance costs. Who wants to pay much of their yearly income in insurance premiums?
I’m curious about this aspect. Could a state government require or force a physician to carry insurance? I suppose they require liability insurance on cars. Hmm.
Which one is more important to our government? 
As I’ve posted previously, yes, they can, and historically have, required that physicians carry liability insurance.
This altered the tort landscape. Sympathetic juries happily handed out large awards to plantiffs against physicians knowing that the insurance policy would cover the judgement. The affect on the medical malpractice insurance market was that malpractice premiums became astoundingly large, often over $200K/year for specialties such as OB/GYN or neurosurgery.
In turn, this had an enormous effect on the practice marketplace. Reimbursements didn’t make up the difference in malpractice premiums and a large number of these physicians decamped for frendlier states, increased their reimbursement rates (often to the exclusion of plans like Medicare/Medicaid), or just retired earlier than planned.
Recognizing how this system made it difficult to get healthcare, several state legislatures have since permitted physicians to practice without liability insurance.
Don’t most states have websites that link to malpractice suits against doctors? How would I find out if my surgeon has been sued?
I must have missed those previous threads. That’s quite interesting. Thanks for enlightening me!
I thought I just heard on the news recently that a company is putting out a web site of doctors to include law suits filed against them. Doesn’t Web MD have a review site. Additionally, while the occasional bad doctor is overlooked, state licensing boards do a pretty good job of weeding out bad doctors.
You could try checking this link to the Florida Department of Health. It lets you check license status and has sections for disciplinary action as well as lawsuits.
The link went kerflooey:
Did you hyperlink it right?
Well, phooey! http://www.doh.state.fl.us/MQA/PRAES/index.html
Let’s try that one. Scroll down a bit and there’s a link called license verification, that’s what I originally tried to link directly to.