Comment by gzer0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gzer0 | Hacker News Reader

> The malpractice insurance of a family doctor is $13,000 a year, while an obstetrician’s insurance can cost $71,000 a year.

This is flat out wrong. No one is paying $71,000 a year in medical malpractice. An average OB/GYN is at $5k / year in insurance costs [1].

A really good source for medical malpractice claims data is the National Practitioner Data Bank which posts data on all paid medical malpractice claims since 1991 [2].

A summary of the data for the U.S. as well as for each individual state is here [3]. All of this is to say, the number of paid malpractice claims has been dropping since 2001, and the total amount paid on these claims has also dropped by 23% since 2003.

What is the real issue here? Defensive Medicine.

Doctors are terrified of being sued so they order batteries of unnecessary tests on patients and make unnecessary referrals in order to avoid lawsuits. These unnecessary tests drive up healthcare costs, not the direct cost of medical malpractice.

This is a problem with the healthcare system and how patients can initiate lawsuits. I don't think it is entirely fair to blame the physician in this instance for covering their bases. Any doctor who has been sued for medical malpractice will tell you that it was a humiliating and degrading experience even if they won their case.

[1] https://truecostofhealthcare.org/malpractice/

[2] https://www.npdb.hrsa.gov/analysistool/

[3] https://truecostofhealthcare.org/malpractice_statistics/

Your own link [1] says "Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000". The OP said "an Ob's ins CAN COST 71k a year" [emphasis mine] so doesn't sound 'flat out wrong' to me.

Next - could you explain why you are bringing in malpractice CLAIMS data in a conversation about PREMIUMS?

> Your own link [1] says "Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000". The OP said "an Ob's ins CAN COST 71k a year" [emphasis mine] so doesn't sound 'flat out wrong' to me.

And that's in California, while a chart lower down shows doctors in New York pay 7 times as much on average, and $35k on average across all specialities.

> could you explain why you are bringing in malpractice CLAIMS data in a conversation about PREMIUMS?

Because this guy has no idea what he’s talking about lmao. $35,000 is more like it for OB/GYNs

35k sounds like a median or mode in a distribution. 2x sounds very feasible to me for deltas between geographic regions.

The average for OB/Gyn is $43,000

But the vast majority, as I stated above, are hospital employed and so it is covered by the hospital. It isn't considered as part of the TC (total comp) that is reported by Medscape [1]. If it was, then the TC for Ob/Gyns would skyrocket to nearly $400k per year.

[1] https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2022-compensation-overvie...

First, the vast majority of OB/Gyns practicing are employed by hospitals. The hospital covers the malpractice costs for the Ob/Gyns / any other physician's employed [1].

OB/Gyns are making $336k total comp on average in 2022 (including salary, bonus, and profit-sharing contributions) [2].

[1] https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-malprac-prem-rep-601...

[2] https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2022-compensation-overvie...

I am confused as to what your problem is? What exactly are you trying to articulate here? OB/Gyns are well compensated, and their insurance premiums are covered by the hospital. They are making above $300k/yr. :)

> What exactly are you trying to articulate here

You claimed that the annual malpractice insurance cost for OB/GYNs comes to around $5k when the true value (according to your link) appears to be several times higher. This is orthogonal to whether OB/GYNs make enough money to cover premiums or whether the hospital covers those premiums.

> This is flat out wrong. No one is paying $71,000 a year in medical malpractice

The plastic surgeon to whom I am married said her numbers was 60k a year previously, and still going up.

The average annual salary for a plastic surgeon was $576k in 2022. And $60,000 is not $71,000. Still yet to see perhaps more than maybe 0.001% of clinicians practicing pay that out of pocket fully.

I must not be understanding what your point is because I think the data show that some doctors pay much more than $71k/yr[1]

[1] specifically the table on the last page of https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media...

Medscape is widely regarded as the reputable source for physician salaries.

They do not consider hospital-issued / covered malpractice insurance as part of the TC listed on their yearly averages, hence why I don't think it should be made as big of a deal as it is being here.

I should say, these numbers affect private practices almost exclusively; and private practices are dying out/being bought out in droves.

TFA's point was that indeed - no individual is paying it. The cost of insurance strongly encourages working for hospitals who will cover that cost, rather than striking out and running the kind of small, one man band practice that the author is nostalgic for.

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