Surgeons Strike Over Insurance Costs

Surgeons at four hospitals began a strike Wednesday to protest malpractice insurance costs, and most operations in northern West Virginia were canceled or were being moved. In Pennsylvania, a similar walkout was averted.

At least 24 surgeons in the coming week will begin 30-day leaves of absence at Wheeling Hospital, Ohio Valley Medical Center, Weirton Medical Center and Reynolds Memorial Hospital, according to numbers provided by the hospitals.

Emergency rooms remained open, but the action was forcing the diversion of most elective and trauma surgeries to hospitals in Morgantown, Ohio or Pennsylvania.

With the holiday, patients likely won't feel the impact until next week. But the surgeons expect lawmakers to get their message: From insurance rates to liberal liability laws, the state has created a hostile working environment, and doctors are ready to leave.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, surgeons around the state backed off their threat to close their practices Wednesday just hours before they were scheduled to walk off the job.

Strike plans were canceled after Gov.-elect Ed Rendell promised to fight for $220 million in aid for doctors this year. The aid offer is tentative.

Rendell, a Democrat, doesn't take office for another three weeks and still must persuade a Republican-controlled Legislature to accept his plan. But there were signs that the offer had averted a large-scale work stoppage.

"We are going to go back to work," said Margo Opsasnick, chief executive at Delta Medix, one of several Scranton surgical groups that had planned to close Jan. 1 because of high insurance costs.

"We are going to take Mr. Rendell's offer as one of good faith, and keep seeing patients," she said Tuesday.

Other physician groups around the state followed suit.

Scranton's biggest hospital, Community Medical Center, notified state officials Tuesday that its neurosurgeons had also agreed to keep working, avoiding a planned closure of northeast Pennsylvania's only trauma center.

"It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders," said hospital spokeswoman Jane Gaul.

No such relief came to surgeons in West Virginia.

"There's no quick fix to this," Dr. Jeffrey Wilps said after he and other surgeons met for more than an hour Tuesday with state Insurance and Retirement Services Director Tom Susman.

"They're just trying to pacify the physicians now. They don't realize it's come to an acute crisis situation," Wilps said. "West Virginia is chasing the doctors — and the businesses in general — out of the state."

Most of the surgeons are insured through a special program created by lawmakers last year. The program recently reduced rates for those policies, but some premiums are still among the highest in the country — up to $133,978, for neurosurgeons.

Susman spent Tuesday trying to head off the strike but repeatedly found surgeons reluctant to wait for legislative solutions.

Lawmakers convene next Wednesday in Charleston. Surgeons in Weirton said Susman asked them to postpone their walkout until Feb. 1, a delay several found unacceptable.

"If we stay silent until Feb. 1, and nothing happens, then they pass us by for another year," said Dr. Samuel Licata, who plans to join the walkout by taking a leave of absence beginning next Monday.

Licata, a board-certified general surgeon for seven years, has seen his annual premiums soar from $18,000 to $58,000 without a single lawsuit filed against him. He urged the state to enact laws that make it harder to sue and cap damage awards.

"People don't understand. Yes, doctors do make a lot of money. But this isn't about us trying to make more money," Licata said. "It's about trying to keep our heads above water."

Many surgeons work at more than one hospitals, and therefore the total number of doctors who had requested leaves was unclear. At Wheeling Hospital, 18 of its 20 orthopedic, cardiac and general surgeons requested leaves. Weirton Hospital said it has 44 surgeons, and 10 have requested leaves. The other two hospitals weren't able to confirm their total number of surgeons.