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Well - it's not my personal story. Yesterday Feb 3, 2003 a bunch of NJ doctors went on strike due to high malpractice premiums. Here is an article that appeared in today's Philadelphia Inquirer
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/5098451.htm
Monica Yant Kinney | A compelling script in doctors' protest
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist
Tue, Feb. 04, 2003
Michael Falk didn't know what to do with himself.
On any other Monday morning, the waiting room at Atrium Pediatrics in Marlton would have been crawling with kids.
Yesterday, the place was empty and ostensibly germ-free.
For a pediatrician used to gurgling and giggling, coughing and crying, the silence was disconcerting.
Then again, so is the medical-malpractice mess in New Jersey.
So much so that thousands of doctors all but went on strike this week.
They've closed their offices and instructed patients to inflict their irritation on legislators and Gov. McGreevey - by phone or fax.
Today, the white coats will take Trenton.
A band of unlikely activists will rally on the Statehouse steps about how soaring jury verdicts and malpractice premiums are causing such fear and loathing that older doctors are retiring and younger ones are packing.
By now, you've probably heard the horror stories about obstetricians paying $175,000 a year for malpractice insurance and high-risk specialists saying sayonara to the Garden State.
And you've probably heard the trial lawyers' spin about the fat-cat cardiologists tooling around in BMWs while victims of medical mistakes struggle with wheelchairs or worse.
But have you heard the one about the boyish-looking pediatrician who's deep in debt and driving a used car?
Living a dream
Falk is 35 and married, with two little boys of his own.
He grew up in Westmont knowing he wanted to be a doctor, knowing he wanted to work with kids.
He came out of medical school $50,000 in debt. He calls it his second mortgage, and has the $400 monthly payments spread out over 25 years.
Pediatricians in these parts earn up to $150,000 after a dozen years in a large practice, Falk says.
The fact that he drives an eight-year-old Infiniti to a tiny office is indicative that he's not earning that, and may never.
Falk joined Atrium five years ago. With three pediatricians, three nurses, a half-dozen receptionists and 4,000 children, it's a small practice by medical standards.
Which is exactly how they like it.
"We want to practice medicine the way it was in the 1970s, where you know your patients," Falk says. "We don't ever want to be so big we can't spend 10 or 15 minutes with them."
For now, they can and do, seeing about 100 children a day - usually within hours of when parents call.
Treating ear infections and schooling nervous new parents about the art of burping hardly seem like high-risk work, but the malpractice-insurance companies think otherwise.
Pediatrician premiums hover around $15,000 a year, Falk says. That's up from $4,000 three years ago.
This year, the practice took out a loan just to pay the bill.
Sick and sicker
Here is where the crisis hits home.
Falk's practice is, essentially, a small business that can't control its fees or the services it provides.
Managed-care insurance companies pay $12 a month per patient, whether the child comes in one time or 10, for a simple checkup or a slew of shots.
So if the doctors are doling out more for malpractice, the only way to make it up is to see more patients.
Patients who, conveniently enough, will be desperately seeking care because their doctor retired or relocated because of malpractice malaise.
Falk fears a time when children will routinely wait in pain for two days with a sore throat.
A time when a kid needing a neurologist must wait, or go out of state.
The thought scares the Atrium staff so much that it locked the doors yesterday and risked the wrath of patients having to learn about the issue the hard way.
Today, Falk will agitate for the first time in more than a decade, protesting for his profession as loudly as he did against apartheid in college.
His diagnosis?
"This is going to have to hurt a little to get better," he says. "And it's going to get worse before it gets better."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/5098451.htm
Monica Yant Kinney | A compelling script in doctors' protest
By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist
Tue, Feb. 04, 2003
Michael Falk didn't know what to do with himself.
On any other Monday morning, the waiting room at Atrium Pediatrics in Marlton would have been crawling with kids.
Yesterday, the place was empty and ostensibly germ-free.
For a pediatrician used to gurgling and giggling, coughing and crying, the silence was disconcerting.
Then again, so is the medical-malpractice mess in New Jersey.
So much so that thousands of doctors all but went on strike this week.
They've closed their offices and instructed patients to inflict their irritation on legislators and Gov. McGreevey - by phone or fax.
Today, the white coats will take Trenton.
A band of unlikely activists will rally on the Statehouse steps about how soaring jury verdicts and malpractice premiums are causing such fear and loathing that older doctors are retiring and younger ones are packing.
By now, you've probably heard the horror stories about obstetricians paying $175,000 a year for malpractice insurance and high-risk specialists saying sayonara to the Garden State.
And you've probably heard the trial lawyers' spin about the fat-cat cardiologists tooling around in BMWs while victims of medical mistakes struggle with wheelchairs or worse.
But have you heard the one about the boyish-looking pediatrician who's deep in debt and driving a used car?
Living a dream
Falk is 35 and married, with two little boys of his own.
He grew up in Westmont knowing he wanted to be a doctor, knowing he wanted to work with kids.
He came out of medical school $50,000 in debt. He calls it his second mortgage, and has the $400 monthly payments spread out over 25 years.
Pediatricians in these parts earn up to $150,000 after a dozen years in a large practice, Falk says.
The fact that he drives an eight-year-old Infiniti to a tiny office is indicative that he's not earning that, and may never.
Falk joined Atrium five years ago. With three pediatricians, three nurses, a half-dozen receptionists and 4,000 children, it's a small practice by medical standards.
Which is exactly how they like it.
"We want to practice medicine the way it was in the 1970s, where you know your patients," Falk says. "We don't ever want to be so big we can't spend 10 or 15 minutes with them."
For now, they can and do, seeing about 100 children a day - usually within hours of when parents call.
Treating ear infections and schooling nervous new parents about the art of burping hardly seem like high-risk work, but the malpractice-insurance companies think otherwise.
Pediatrician premiums hover around $15,000 a year, Falk says. That's up from $4,000 three years ago.
This year, the practice took out a loan just to pay the bill.
Sick and sicker
Here is where the crisis hits home.
Falk's practice is, essentially, a small business that can't control its fees or the services it provides.
Managed-care insurance companies pay $12 a month per patient, whether the child comes in one time or 10, for a simple checkup or a slew of shots.
So if the doctors are doling out more for malpractice, the only way to make it up is to see more patients.
Patients who, conveniently enough, will be desperately seeking care because their doctor retired or relocated because of malpractice malaise.
Falk fears a time when children will routinely wait in pain for two days with a sore throat.
A time when a kid needing a neurologist must wait, or go out of state.
The thought scares the Atrium staff so much that it locked the doors yesterday and risked the wrath of patients having to learn about the issue the hard way.
Today, Falk will agitate for the first time in more than a decade, protesting for his profession as loudly as he did against apartheid in college.
His diagnosis?
"This is going to have to hurt a little to get better," he says. "And it's going to get worse before it gets better."
