At least that is what the increase in applications to practice medicine in Texas over the last five years would indicate.

You know, since Texas voters capped non-economic damages in malpractice cases.

In Texas, it can be a long wait for a doctor: up to six months.

That is not for an appointment. That is the time it can take the Texas Medical Board to process applications to practice.

Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.

The influx, raising the stateÂ’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical boardÂ’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.

“It was hard to believe at first; we thought it was a spike,” said Dr. Donald W. Patrick, executive director of the medical board and a neurosurgeon and lawyer. But Dr. Patrick said the trend — licenses up 18 percent since 2003, when the damage caps were enacted — has held, with an even sharper jump of 30 percent in the last fiscal year, compared with the year before.

“Doctors are coming to Texas because they sense a friendlier malpractice climate,” he said.

You can still recover every penalty of your actual damages here in Texas -- the law didn't change that. But you can no longer get a multi-million dollar payout for "pain and suffering" or punitive damages in a case with $150,000 in actual damages. Sounds like a reasonable trade-off to me.

Posted by: Greg at 10:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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