The number of doctors has climbed.  

Doctors’ insurance premiums have remained flat. 

Evidence of a medical malpractice crisis in Oklahoma just isn’t there.

“The numbers show that Oklahoma doctors don’t face a crisis,” said Jeff Raymond, executive director of OKWatchdog, an Oklahoma City-based consumer-advocacy group. “Even the state’s largest medical malpractice insurer admits it has never been stronger financially. It’s hard to argue convincingly that the state’s doctors are in trouble when their own malpractice insurer is flush with money.”

The state Medical Association called Friday for a special legislative session to deal with medical malpractice lawsuit reform. Its representatives cited state Supreme Court decisions they said could prompt frivolous lawsuits.

The most important decision, Zeier v. Zimmer Inc., will be two years old later this month. Where is the proof frivolous lawsuits have been a problem since the law was struck down?

Oklahoma judges already have the ability to throw out frivolous lawsuits — and sanction attorneys who file them.

The number of medical malpractice lawsuits decreased 60 percent from July 2003 (after passage of the Affordable Access to Health Care Act, which the Oklahoma Supreme Court has struck down in two decisions) to Oct. 2004 in the state’s eight largest counties, the Tulsa World reported. Filings decreased 19 percent from 2004-05 in the state’s 12 largest counties, according to the Oklahoma Supreme Court Network.

Physicians Liability Insurance Company, which the state Medical Association owns, saw claims range from 307 to 389 a year from 2004-07. The number remained consistent before and after the 2003 law was struck down. PLICO insures the majority of the state’s doctors.

 The Medical Association board at its Nov. 16 meeting heard how PLICO “is in the best financial condition since the company began,” according to its newsletter.

Moreover, Medical Liability Monitor surveys show premiums for Oklahoma internal medicine doctors, general surgeons and obstetrician-gynecologists have been flat since 2005.

“As Physicians Practice magazine has declared, Oklahoma is a good place to be a doctor,” Raymond said.

A 1999 National Institutes of Medicine report found medical mistakes kill as many as 98,000 people each year in U.S. hospitals. According to the Leapfrog Group, a nationally recognized leader in improving hospital care, each year 2 million people acquire an infection during a hospital stay; 90,000 of them die.

 “Strengthening patient-rights legislation and disciplining bad doctors will do more to improve medicine than protecting doctors,” Raymond said.