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Statement of the Florida Section Of the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

By Paul Gluck, MD, ACOG Florida Chair

MIAMI, FL., -- Today, the Florida Section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), representing 4,536 physicians who provide healthcare to women, reaffirms the need for medical liability reform in the state of Florida to protect women’s access to healthcare.

Without meaningful medical liability reform in the State of Florida, women’s access to care and patient safety remain in jeopardy.

The situation is so extreme in Florida that experts told Governor Bush’s task force last year that soaring insurance rates are limiting patients’ access to healthcare, squeezing an already overburdened system, and damaging attempts to cut back on medical errors.

Our present system is not fair to patients, to physicians or to society. Some patients, whose injuries are the result of their underlying disease and not substandard care, become millionaires at the expense of other patients who are never compensated for legitimate problems. In this era of escalating healthcare costs and budget deficits, society cannot afford, for much longer, to ignore a broken medical liability system.

The current liability insurance crisis has become so severe that it threatens to keep the best physicians out of the labor-and-delivery room. The interaction of our medical and our legal system has gone terribly wrong. And we must find ways to increase patient safety measures, not obstruct them, as our current liability system does.

In order to find meaningful solutions, physicians and patients alike must be free to participate in the political system to facilitate change. Obstetrics and gynecology is a high-risk specialty, by its nature. Ob-gyns are sued often - second only to neurosurgeons.

The most recent ACOG survey indicates that approximately 76.5 percent of all ob-gyns in the nation have been sued at least once in their career. Consider the following important facts:

• Ob-gyns win 60 to 80 percent of claims filed against them;
• Over one-half of claims are dropped, dismissed, or settled without payment; and,
• Ob-gyns win 7 out of 10 cases by jury or court verdict

One in 6 Florida physicians will be sued, compared to 1 in 12 nationwide, according to First Professionals Insurance Company, Inc., Florida’s largest liability insurer. Nationwide, ob-gyns have an average of 2.53 claims filed against them during their career.

The Florida Section of ACOG calls upon our governor and state legislators to enact meaningful liability and insurance reform, a prerequisite for improving access to care and quality of care for Florida’s citizens. ACOG has identified the state of Florida as one of nine "red alert" states whose failure to address liability reform has precipitated a health care crisis.

For this reason, ACOG supports a liability insurance system that fosters high quality, affordable care for every woman, and ensures that patients who have been harmed have an opportunity to be fairly compensated. ACOG is committed to reducing the incidence of patient injury and medical errors, and supports patient safety reforms, continuing medical education and peer review, and improved data collection and reporting, to help patients receive the highest quality of care.