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2007 Proposed Legislation   |   Medical Liability Reform  |  Duty to Disclose (.pdf) | 
New CT Law: Timely Reporting WC Claims (.pdf)

Medical Liability Reform

The Connecticut Society for Healthcare Risk Management adamantly believes that reforms are needed in state and federal tort laws to improve the predictability, efficiency and fairness of our medical malpractice legal system. The Society also believes that patients injured by medical negligence have the inalienable right to seek relief through the courts. However, the Society strongly supports efforts to implement caps on non-economic damages and are very concerned with the failure of our legislators to take meaningful actions to resolve this crisis.

The increasing cost of medical liability insurance has evolved from numerous years of skyrocketing jury awards. According to the Connecticut General Assembly losses for medical malpractice insures are higher in Connecticut than the nation as a whole on a per capita basis. Nationally, paid losses have increased 68 percent over the last 12 years. In Connecticut the increase was 112 percent. The American Medical Association has designated Connecticut as a state in crisis.

The Society for Healthcare Risk Management is extremely concerned about the access to care issues as well as the financial impact on our healthcare facilities and the state of Connecticut as a whole. We the members of the Society believe that reforms must be established that will stabilize and reduce medical liability insurance costs now as well as into the future.

We the Society offer the following position:

• Legislative support for medical liability reform to include caps on awards for non-economic damages at $250,000 for all medical malpractice suits is essential
    
• Require alternative dispute resolution practices (arbitration, mediation, dispute reviews and mini-trials) in an effort to bring disputes to timely, equitable and cost-effective conclusions without litigation in the courts
    
• The requirement of good faith certificates should be amended so that fewer frivolous actions are filed against healthcare providers. We recommend that plaintiffs be required to disclose the good faith basis for their suit at the outset of discovery, rather than at the conclusion
    
• Make the requirements for testifying experts meet more stringent criteria regarding clinical practice, knowledge and skills before being allowed to hold themselves out as experts on the appropriate standard of care for physicians in this State.
    
• Require that the statutory limitations on plaintiff attorneys contingency fees are mandatory
    
• Prohibit trial lawyers from suggesting actual damage amounts to a jury
    
• Modify the joint and several liability provisions related to the re-allocation of liability for unsatisfied portions of a judgment
    
• Modify the offer-of-judgement rule to decrease the amount of pre-judgement interest allowed