A new insurance approach pioneered by a North Carolina Neurosurgeon over the last few years is working to make countersuits the cornerstone of your defense.This is receiving national press attention. They insure you to make it easier, work with your office to create a patient contract for added protection, and warn any potential suer early of their presence. And if you go to court, they are ready to support a countersuit should the case allow it. This is a new approach now in 32 states, which makes comparison harder. But, their early results in Florida suggest lower litigation rates amongst their clients, even in the face of Florida's rising litigation.

How does this work? They have three steps. First is to improve your practice infrastructure with a patient contract in which patients promise to not bring frivolous suits, that an expert witness will be board certified in your specialty, and that the expert will be disclosed and deposed 60 days prior to trial. This has the intent of making the patient more cautious in suing, and opening the closed access to an expert witness to an important degree. In New York, for example, the expert is only disclosed when he or she appears, or perhaps a day before. Medical Justice hopes to move some of the issues to contract law from tort law by this change.

The second step is that on notification of a suit, they inform the plaintiff's attorney that Medical Justice has you as a client, and that they can counter sue for a frivolous suit. Medical Justice reports some physicians may be dropped from cases from this step alone.

Third, if you do go to court on a malpractice suit and win, Medical Justice can counter sue the expert or even the attorney, depending on the details of the suit. What if the suit is settled? They will look at this on a case by case basis for an extra fee.

They will cover you for future cases, or retroactively for 1year, 2 years, or even from the end of your residency. The rates are discounted by some society memberships, and it is best to check with them on details.

What is the effect of this, and is it worth the cost? It is early to judge, but this could well be an important additional step in your malpractice shield. It does not take away from rigorous practice evaluation and other steps discussed in this site. But your defense team may just have gotten tougher.