A medical malpractice law passed in West Virginia last year is apparently to blame for an increase in medical malpractice lawsuits against state agencies this year. According to the Charleston Daily Mail, a legislative auditor reported to legislators that new law’s March 1 deadline for filing claims under the old law caused a surge in claims filed in January and February of this year.
Most of the claims were filed against the West Virginia University (WVU) School of Medicine. Seventeen of 26 new suits brought against the school in the first half of the year were filed in the first two months of 2002.
The state’s Board of Risk and Insurance Management’s had an $18,547,000 increase in unfunded liability at the end of the last fiscal year on June 30, according to the report provided to lawmakers.
The new law stipulated that starting on March 1, new malpractice lawsuits must include a certificate of merit showing the claim had been reviewed by an expert witness and that there is merit to the claim. In the quarter that ended Sept. 30, WVU had only four malpractice suits filed against it, the lowest number of any quarter since the beginning of 1998.
The increase in the severity of the claims was not attributed to a single factor, but the report noted that WVU is seeing a higher number of referrals of high-risk child delivery cases, since many obstetrician-gynecologists are leaving their practices in West Virginia.
Topics Trends Agencies Legislation Claims Virginia West Virginia
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