Integrating quality with risk financing through a risk retention group

Abstract

In Philadelphia, one of the nation's judicial battlegrounds, a clinical practice group of 360 physicians responded to the medical malpractice insurance crisis by creating a reciprocal risk retention group that has supported the group's best practices while almost eliminating the number of claims going to trial. This article describes how the insurance crisis helped change the culture of its physician practice group, restore the close physician-patient relationship that lies at the heart of medicine, and shows how elements of this revolutionary program can be adopted by all professional liability insurers.