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Wisconsin Medical Society files appeal to protect patients

For more than 30 years, the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund has existed to protect Wisconsin patients. Today that fund is in jeopardy and, subsequently, so may be patients’ access to high quality health care.

The fund has no taxpayer dollars. Instead, since 1975, physicians and a few other types of medical professionals have paid hundreds of millions of dollars into the fund to provide for patients injured as a result of medical errors. The fund covers unlimited economic damages such as loss of earnings or earning capacity for patients who can no longer work, past and future medical expenses related to the injury and reasonable compensation for non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of normal activities.

In this respect, the fund serves as a financial safety net for injured patients and their families. Few other states in the nation offer such protection for their citizens.

However, during 2007 and 2008, the state of Wisconsin took a total of $200 million from the fund to balance its own budget. So the Wisconsin Medical Society took action. Representing more than 12,500 physicians, the society brought suit against the state for return of these funds.

We believe the money in the fund was not the state’s to take, and the raid eroded the financial integrity of this essential safeguard. Because the fund provides stability to the medical liability environment, erosion of the fund’s assets is likely to have a strong negative impact on the recruitment and retention of quality health care professionals in Wisconsin.

This, in turn, will likely affect a patient’s access to doctors at a time when we are experiencing a growing shortage of health care professionals, particularly in the inner city and rural areas.

In December, a Dane County Court ruled that the state’s raid on the fund is permissible. We could have accepted this miscarriage of justice and walked away. But we knew this might open the door for future raids, further putting patients and quality health care at risk. We carefully reviewed our next steps and, on March 17, we appealed the lower court’s decision. Our commitment to protecting the fund is unwavering, and our decision to sue the state is not taken lightly.

Physicians and other health care professionals have an interest in preserving the fund’s integrity and security to ensure that the money is used only to pay the claims of injured patients and their families.

Moreover, at a time when so many government programs are struggling, the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund has been a shining example of public-private cooperation in the public interest. It’s important to keep it that way by ensuring that the money raided from the fund is restored.

Steven Bergin, MD, is president of the Wisconsin Medical Society. Mailing address 4005 Community Center Drive, Weston, WI 54476; e-mail Stevenbe@aspirus.org; phone (715) 241-5400.