Premiums devour earnings, so surgeon closes her practice

After 15 years, the local surgeon called it quits.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Dr. Nancy Gantt, a general surgeon here since 1989, said she was devastated when skyrocketing malpractice insurance premiums forced her to close her practice earlier this year.
"My malpractice insurance [premium] went from $12,000 to $24,000 to $48,000 to $65,000, one year after another," while reimbursements for doctors' services were "dropping through the floor," Dr. Gantt told a forum Wednesday at Youngstown State University.
Tri-County Physicians for Patients' Rights, a medical malpractice insurance reform advocacy group comprised of members of the Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana county medical societies, sponsored the forum.
With no legal judgments against her, Dr. Gantt, whose practice focused on breast surgery, closed her office in February after learning that this year her malpractice insurance premium would exceed all of her $60,000 in after-tax earnings from her full-time practice last year.
"The decision to close my practice was really one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make," she said.
"Cleaning out my office was awful. I couldn't even look at the names on my charts of my patients because I would be so upset. I became so attached to my patients, and they're such wonderful people."
Patient speaks out
Dr. Gantt said she has been sued several times but has never gone to trial in any of the cases. "I've been dropped from everything," she said of malpractice suits that initially named her as a defendant.
Also addressing the forum was one of Dr. Gantt's patients, Barbara Sobota of Springfield Township, who said Dr. Gantt was her surgeon when she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.
But, when she needed Dr. Gantt's services again recently, Dr. Gantt told her she had, regretfully, closed her practice.
"When you are in the middle of a medical crisis of your own, or your family is faced with this, the last thing you need is to begin looking for a physician," Sobota said.
She was referred to another doctor in Pittsburgh and had to make many long-distance calls and trips there, she told the audience.
Today, Dr. Gantt is director of all Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine surgical clerkships at six medical campuses.