Women’s Access to Health Care Hurt by Medical Liability Crisis
Source: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)

Increasing medical liability insurance premiums and the fear of lawsuits continue to force ob-gyns to change how they practice medicine, according to the latest medical liability survey conducted by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). As a result, many women across the country are going without basic health care and treatment of serious health conditions, as more ob-gyns are providing fewer services, retiring from practice completely, or relocating to areas where there are less liability concerns.

According to the ACOG survey, 70% of ob-gyns have made changes to their practice because of the lack of available or affordable medical liability insurance, and 65% have made changes because of the risk or fear of liability claims or litigation. Between 7-8% have stopped practicing obstetrics altogether because of either insurance affordability or availability issues or the risk or fear of being sued.

+ 2006 ACOG Survey on Professional Liability (PDFs)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 5th, 2006 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Gender and sexuality, Health and healthcare, Legal and law enforcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.