Emergency room doctors who care for more than 100,000 patients a year at Everett and Monroe hospitals have been told their malpractice insurance will be dropped April 1.
That leaves 33 doctors and 15 physician assistants of Emergency Physicians’ Medical Group Northwest, who staff the emergency departments at the hospitals, scrambling to find new insurance.
It’s all part of the continuing fallout of malpractice rates on health care organizations.
"We cannot practice without liability insurance," said Dr. Jeff Wajda, medical director for Providence Everett Medical Center’s emergency department.
Fifteen companies have been asked if they will underwrite malpractice insurance for the emergency room physicians next year.
"We’re just waiting to hear," said Dr. James Torres, medical director for the emergency room at Valley General Hospital in Monroe and business director for the emergency physicians group.
Officials at both hospitals have pledged that their emergency departments will remain open, even if the hospitals have to temporarily step in to help find a solution.
"We’re not going to let our emergency room close," said Cheri Russum, spokeswoman for the Everett hospital. "We have to do that for this community."
Mark Judy, chief executive of Valley General, said the hospital could temporarily include the emergency room physicians under the hospital’s malpractice coverage.
"Any insurance provided by the hospitals would be a temporary bridge to some other solution," said Dr. Cindy Markus, who has worked at the Everett and Monroe emergency departments for 28 years and is state chapter president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
"We’re hopeful we’ll find another company to insure us."
The hospitals have seen their own malpractice rates skyrocket. Valley General, for example, has seen its costs this year leap from $180,000 to $660,000. It has been warned to expect at least a 25 percent increase next year, Judy said.
Problems with liability insurance have come in cycles since the mid-1980s, Markus said. "In my memory, this is the worst we’ve ever seen it with liability," she said.
The Everett and Monroe emergency doctors said they were surprised their insurance wasn’t being renewed because "we haven’t had a claim in many years, and there are no claims pending," Wajda said.
"The company that canceled us said you couldn’t pay them enough to keep us in business for emergency room doctors in this state," Markus said.
Insurance companies "are finding the Washington market too risky to be in," Wajda said, because there are no caps on monetary damages for pain and suffering.
California has a $250,000 cap on such damages, he said, which are costs other than those related to income lost because of problems in medical care.
"What the public doesn’t understand is the pockets are not unlimited with regard to paying for malpractice; there is a breaking point," Torres said.
Emergency room physicians and hospitals are just some of the groups affected by rising rates. The Everett Clinic, with its malpractice insurance rates hitting $3.9 million this year, announced in October that it will insure itself next year. It is believed to be the first such move by a medical group in Snohomish County.
Malpractice costs are affecting access to medical care, particularly women’s services. It was one of the reasons cited for the March 2002 closing of Everett’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Consultants.
Sound Women’s Care in Edmonds, which delivered 75 percent of the 1,404 babies born last year at Stevens Hospital, said rising malpractice rates are making it difficult to recruit doctors. Unless the clinic can recruit two more doctors by early next year, it may not be able to continue obstetric services.
Initiatives are under way in the state to try to fix the malpractice problem, said Judy, a board member of the state hospital association.
The Washington State Medical Association "has made this a do-or-die issue for the 2004 Legislature," he said.
But the problem is so serious, and affects doctors and health care organizations in so many states, "I think it will take federal activity to fix it," Judy said.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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