Healthcare - West Virginia State Medical Association

The WVSMA is fighting for West Virginia physiciansand their patients!A key element of our hard fought medicalliability reform is under attack. The WestVirginia State Supreme Court of Appeals hasaccepted a case challenging the non-economicdamages cap passed by the West VirginiaLegislature in 2003. The cap has played akey role in bringing stability to our judicialsystem with fewer meritless lawsuits, lowermedical liability insurance premiums and morephysicians coming to our state. The bottomline is that the reforms are working and haveimproved access to care. All this progress is atrisk. West Virginia is one State Supreme Courtdecision away from another access to care crisis.On October 11, a comprehensive ‘AmicusBrief’ signed by WVSMA Executive DirectorEvan Jenkins was filed with the State SupremeCourt fighting to keep our reforms. Thebrief sets forth the many legal arguments towhy the reforms should be upheld. It alsochallenges the arguments being used by theanti-liability reform personal injury attorneyswho are working hard to get the StateSupreme Court to strike the reforms down.To learn the latest on our fight to keep our medical liability reforms and read the AmicusBrief filed by the broad coalition of healthcare advocates, visit www.wvsma.com.The WVSMAwishes to express itssincere appreciationto the followingorganizationsand associationsthat agreed toparticipate in thiscoordinated effort:the following component societies: Eastern panhandle medical society, cabell countymedical society, kanawha county medical society, mercer county medicalsociety, greenbrier valley medical society, south branch medical society, andmonongalia county medical societyWest Virginia Medical Journal