On Feb. 7 a jury found the Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia had wrongly revoked the privileges of vascular surgeon R. E. Hamrick, Jr. over a financial dispute. It awarded Hamrick $25 million, including $20 million in punitive damages; the dispute arose over Hamrick’s desire to set up a self-insurance fund against professional liability as opposed to purchasing outside insurance. CAMC has retreated from initial talk of pay freezes for staff, but it is unclear where it will come up with the money — about 4 percent of its annual budget — in ways that have no impact on patients: “‘Any time you have to spend $15 million, how can it not affect the way we care for people?’ asked Dr. Tom Bowden, who also serves on CAMC’s Board of Trustees.” However, expert witness Jonathan Cunitz of Westport, Ct., who testified for the plaintiffs on punitive damages, told the Daily Mail that patients and employees “shouldn’t be concerned for a second” about cutbacks because the nonprofit community hospital could just pull the money from the magic rainbow wishing well could cover the punitive damage award “just out of the money generated by Hamrick’s surgeries,” in the newspaper’s phrasing. It sounds almost as if hospital revenues from surgery constitute pure gravy and do not involve any correlative expenditures. The hospital’s CEO notes that the damage award “was higher than the $15 million CAMC spent to purchase the former Putnam General Hospital in 2006.” (Justin D. Anderson, “Doctor responds to colleague’s lawsuit win against CAMC”, Charleston Daily Mail, Feb. 12; Eric Eyre, Charleston Gazette, Feb. 13, Feb. 20, Feb. 21; Chris Dickerson, West Virginia Record, Feb. 7).
$25 million for yanking hospital privileges
On Feb. 7 a jury found the Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia had wrongly revoked the privileges of vascular surgeon R. E. Hamrick, Jr. over a financial dispute. It awarded Hamrick $25 million, including $20 million in punitive damages; the dispute arose over Hamrick’s desire to set up a self-insurance fund against professional […]
3 Comments
OK. Then, the hospital should pay the settlement, as his money comes in.
The idiocy of juries never ceases to amaze.
This case shows the problems of our tort system in two ways. First of course is the crazy jury verdict. The second is why the case happened in the first way. West Virginia is home to the one of the worst legal climates to practice medicine and is in crisis. The surgeon had tried to set up a fund to cover potential medmal payments instead of getting commercial insurance. For him it was a better deal. Pay into a fund. The problem was that medmal is all about the money. If he was sued for more that the fund actually had, the hospital would be hit because of “joint but several” legal attacks. So, because of the crazy legal system the hospital would be held financially responsible if the doctor was sued, the doctor who could not afford the commercial insurance ends up suing the hospital. The end result, patients lose because to save money the hospital has to cut the staff that takes care of patients. Every other doc will try to get out of med mal insurance making the hospitals more of a target.