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Kentucky Medical Malpractice Attorney

I would like to take this opportunity to write to your law firm and thank you for coming through for me when I lost hope in my previous attorney.
We will gladly be a reference for you, and we certainly will recommend you as the attorney to have in Louisville. You have a gift in the way you are able to communicate with your clients and within the legal system.
My father would have been so proud to know that his case was driven home with such passion and genius. Thank you for giving that jury every tool they needed to hold those people accountable for the torture they inflicted on my Dad.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you...
You have now made it possible for me to rest assured that I have everything I need now and in the future to cover the expenses of my disability

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The Poppe Law Firm Blog

Kentucky Medical Malpractice Attorney

6/27/2009
Hans G. Poppe
Comments (2)

The REAL TRUTH About Medical Malpractice Verdicts in Kentucky

I am so tired of uninformed people telling me that we need tort reform in Kentucky to keep good doctors in the state. Too man Money Down The Drain

y people wrongly believe that juries are shoveling money at injured patients like the government bailing out the auto makers.

Well the TRUTH of the matter is quite the opposite. In fact, the absolute worst kind of case to take before a jury is a medical malpractice case. Juries don't like to think doctors make serious mistakes that injure or kill. Couple that with the fact that most people sitting on juries have been drinking the insurance company Kool-Aid for so long that they actually believe the hype about medical malpractice suits being out of control and jeapordizing health care. So, when most people get on a medical malpractice jury, they are already predisposed to side with the doctor.

Think I'm making this up? Well, here are the actual statistics in kentucky on medical malpractice cases from the Kentucky Trial Court Review 2008.

In 2008, fifty-six medical malpractice cases were tried. The patient prevailed 11 times. That means the healthcare provider won 45 times. You don't need to be a statistics major to do the math. If you were a patient in a med mal lawsuit in Kentucky in 2008, you had about a 19.6% you would win at trial. Heck, you'd be better of taking the $100,000 - $200,000 it takes to get a medical malpractice case to trial over to the boat and play blackjack. At least in blackjack the House only has an 8% advantage over the player. Or better yet, bet it all on black in roulette, you have a 47% chance of winning.

Roulette Wheel

Some of you may be asking, "Is gambling really a proper analogy for going to trial in a medical malpractice case?" Sure it is, in the few cases that the plaintiffs won, the juries awarded a total of $26,785,227 (this is in the entire state of Kentucky) divide that number by the number of trials, (56) and the average verdict was $478,307. So, if I told you I was going to give you $100,000 in cash (the amount of money it would take to get a medical malpractice case to trial) and gave you the option of going to trial were you have a 19.6% chance of winning an average of $478,000, or taking it to Caesar's and betting it all on black were you have a 47% chance of winning, where would the smart money play?

Please don't tell me our system of justice is a "lawsuit lottery." There is no place for that kind ignorance when dealing with catastrophically injured patients. Limiting the amount of money severely injured patients can recover does nothing to "fix" the system. The system is broken alright, its just broken in favor of the healthcare providers. And that's the REAL TRUTH.

Hans

Labels: hospital medical malpractice negligence personal injury tort reform trial

2 Comments to "The REAL TRUTH About Medical Malpractice Verdicts in Kentucky"

Ryan, thanks for expressing your opinions; however, it may be your post that lacks foresight (or hindsight. An independent non-profit group (Public Citizens) examined medical malpractice claims in Kentucky and here are the facts:
Malpractice insurance costs comprise a small percentage of physician
expenses. According to the federal government’s Medicare program, doctors spend
nationally an average of 63.4 percent of their practice incomes on their own salaries, 33.4
percent on such overhead as office payroll and rent, and only 3.2 percent of their practice
incomes on malpractice insurance. And Kentucky doctors spend an average of only 2.8
percent of their practice incomes on malpractice insurance – 12.5 percent less than the
national average.
· Claims about doctors abandoning Kentucky are contradicted by official data.
The Kentucky Medical Association has publicly claimed that Kentucky lost 819 practicing
doctors during the two years ending in 2002. Official demographic statistics compiled by the
Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure show that there were 8,911 licensed physicians
working in Kentucky in 2000, and 8,892 physicians in 2002 – a difference of only 19
doctors. Furthermore, there was a decrease of 214 doctors in the populated counties of
Jefferson and Fayette during those two years – indicating the small decline occurred in urban
areas, not in rural areas where access to doctors is a more critical issue.
· The ratio of doctors to residents has increased faster in Kentucky than in
neighboring states. From 1985 to 2001, the ratio of physicians per 1,000 Kentucky
residents rose from 1.62 to 2.33 – a 43.8 percent growth in this measurement of the
prevalence of doctors. In comparison, during the same period this measurement increased at
a slower rate in four neighboring states of Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee, some of
which had caps on melpractice awards in place during this time.

If you would like to know more facts, take a look at the entire report here: www.citizen.org/documents/KY_MedMal_Report.pdf

Posted by Hans on July 14, 2009 at 09:44 PM

I feel this message is written without the forethought that it requires. Of those 56 cases that were tried, how many were actually legitimate? Frivalous lawsuits are not a thing of myth, they happen everyday and drive the cost of insurance through the roof for healthcare providers. Link this with the fact that the majority of counties in Kentucky are without specialized doctors like obstetricians due to rising insurance premiums and it is clear that we have problem. What makes me question your motive is when I see attorneys on TV claiming that everything can be fixed with a settlement or "we'll get money for you". Instead of feasting on the ignorant, try becoming a physician and really helping people for a change.

Posted by Ryan D. Ball on July 14, 2009 at 12:58 PM