Risk & Insurance: High Medical Malpractice Premiums Are Driving OB-GYNs Out of the Business. How Will Women Cope?

Risk & Insurance: High Medical Malpractice Premiums Are Driving OB-GYNs Out of the Business. How Will Women Cope?

In a recent article, Risk & Insurance looked at high malpractice premiums for OB/GYNs and whether changes to the way OB/GYNs risks are managed could attract more people into the specialty.

OBHG's Eric Gardzina, OBHG's Senior Vice President of Risk Management provided his perspective. One solution cited in the article was about the benefits of hiring OB hospitalists to help decrease burnout among private practice OB/GYNs:

A move to hiring more hospitalists would also decrease burnout among OB-GYNs in private practice. As Sullivan explained, “[Hospitalists are] board-certified obstetricians who have dedicated their careers to the care of patients within the hospital setting. These clinical experts … manage obstetric patients and gynecological emergencies, and they can really work in tandem with physicians to ensure that patient safety and professional satisfaction across the delivery care setting is implemented.”

An obstetrician hospitalist enjoys the benefits of set working hours and the support system of an entire hospital, reducing the risk of burnout and helping to achieve better work-life balance.

More hospitalists would help obstetricians in private practice, too. “OBGYNs that are working on their own now recognize that there’s a backstop at the hospital that’s going to protect them and help them, versus in the past when the patient would just sit there and not have anything happen to them for three or four hours,” Gardzina said.

Patients benefit, too. Both expectant mothers with no access to an OB-GYN in private practice and those whose obstetricians are unavailable can expect better outcomes when they receive treatment from a certified obstetrician as soon as they arrive at the hospital. Avoiding adverse outcomes in the first place is one step toward addressing the high cost of med mal insurance.

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