IMPROVING ACCESS TO CARE

Unlike most states, Texas is adding high-risk and primary care doctors faster than the rate of population growth, which is an incredible accomplishment when one considers that Texas has one of the fastest growing populations in the nation and is the most populous of the fast growth states.

Since the passage of reforms, 50 Texas counties have added their first emergency medicine physician. The ranks of rural obstetricians have grown by 26 percent. Thirty-one rural counties have added an obstetrician . Twenty-four rural counties have added a cardiologist and seventeen have added an orthopedic surgeon. Because of tort reform, more patients can now get the timely and specialized care they need closer to home.

Hospitals have re-invested their liability savings into new technology, patient care and patient safety, and have increased charity care by more than $100 million dollars annually. Without reforms and the attendant liability savings, these achievements would have been impossible.

Hospital expansions, coupled with the influx of 15,000 new doctors, have increased employment and tax revenues throughout our state. Liability costs have been saved, easing funding demands for community hospitals, county health systems, women’s, charity, and inner city clinics.

Those 297 doctors new to the Rio Grande Valley equate to 297 new small businesses, providing jobs to Valley residents and needed care to a growing population.

Texas tort reform has kept doctors in practice, in the emergency room and in the examination room treating sick and injured patients. And for all their misdirection and hyperbole, the trial lawyer can’t explain that away.

Because of medical lawsuit reform Dr. David Cantu has re-instituted his obstetrical practice in Fredericksburg.

Pediatric neurosurgeon Timothy George relocated his practice from North Carolina and credits tort reform with attracting him and his sought-after-specialty to Austin. Says Dr. George, “Texas made it easier to practice and easier to take care of complex patients.”

George Rodriguez walks today thanks to tort reform. Newly established Corpus Christi neurosurgeon Matthew Alexander urgently operated on Rodriguez’ spinal abscess, relieving the paralysis in his legs, and, in so doing, spared him life in a wheel chair. Without the state’s lawsuit limits, Dr. Alexander says he wouldn’t have relocated to Texas thus depriving Mr. Rodriguez access to emergency neurosurgery in Corpus Christi.

Cancer survivor Ruby Collins credits newly-minted Brownwood urologist Daniel Alstatt with saving her life. Dr. Alstatt says he wouldn’t have moved to Brownwood, population 19,000, if it weren’t for tort reform.

Thanks to the passage of lawsuits reforms, critical care services are now more readily available in many Texas communities. A few years ago a Central Texas man, George Kuempel, fell from an oak tree and broke his back. Nine hours later in a city 65 miles away, Kuempel finally got the specialized care he needed. One would have thought that a city of Austin’s size would have a spine surgeon readily available when urgently needed. Truth is there were too few neurosurgeons caring for a growing population in Travis and the surrounding counties. So, Kuempel was flown to Scott & White Hospital in Temple for surgery.

That unfortunate event occurred prior to passage of the state’s medical lawsuit reforms. Since then, Austin has added two neurosurgeons and several of the remaining neurosurgeons are again taking emergency calls.