Dealing with a birth injury is difficult and stressful. Seeing a child suffer can put a great deal of hardship on a family, both emotionally and financially. When a doctor makes a mistake, victims may have the right to file a medical malpractice claim and seek monetary damages that stem from the doctor’s negligence. The physician’s medical malpractice insurance may help pay for these costs, but especially serious cases may also seek compensation from a birth injury indemnity fund. These funds help provide an additional source of compensation for injured patients, children, and their families.
Understanding what a birth injury indemnity fund is and how it works can help families seek compensation after a birth injury.
Birth Injury Indemnity Funds: What Are They?
A birth injury indemnity fund is a separate source of compensation that most states make accessible to qualified plaintiffs who suffered harm from medical malpractice. These funds help relieve individual defendants from paying for future medical costs of a birth injury. To do this, medical providers and doctors pay premiums to the indemnity fund, which provide a source of compensation for injured victims throughout their lifetime. A doctor or hospital is typically responsible for the initial costs of the injury to a certain amount within medical malpractice policy insurance limits. Most indemnity funds set minimum coverage amounts participants must carry. After they meet their initial payment obligations, the indemnity fund supports the patient from there.
Most indemnity funds are operated by state governments. They typically work as a separate fund from the general state budget and are maintained similarly to how large commercial insurance policies operate.
Types of Birth Injuries These Funds Help Cover
Some of the most common birth injuries that cause long-term harm include:
- Cerebral palsy
- Hypoxia or lack of oxygen to the brain
- Brachial plexus injuries
- Spinal cord injuries
- Intracranial hemorrhages
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Broken and fractured bones
- Paralysis
- C-section injuries
- Caput succedaneum
A newborn may suffer one of these injuries or another one due to a doctor’s negligence. When this happens, the child and family may be entitled to recover compensation from a birth injury indemnity fund.
The Purpose of Birth Injury Indemnity Funds
These funds are designed to serve two primary functions:
Provide for Long-Term Plaintiff’s Costs
An injured infant will likely have long-term needs and costs associated with their injury. These costs can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars over the course of a child’s lifetime. These expenses often far exceed a doctor’s medical malpractice insurance limits or a hospital’s reasonable ability to pay without significant harm. The birth injury indemnity fund helps with these long-term costs well into the future.
These expenses often include:
- Treatment for birth injuries
- Rehabilitation services
- Occupational and physical therapy
- Special childcare or education costs
- Costs of disability accommodations and home modifications
- Future costs of surgery and other medical procedures
- Nursing assistance or other specialized medical care
- Vehicular modifications
- Medications to treat or manage symptoms
Many other costs might be included and could be compensable under the birth injury indemnity fund. A birth injury attorney can explain what might apply to a someone’s particular situation .
Reduce the Costs of Medical Malpractice Litigation
Doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers are always concerned about the cost of malpractice litigation. Indemnity funds offset the risks associated with a high-dollar verdict, even when one is warranted. For example, imagine a doctor negligently fails to monitor a mother during labor. The umbilical cord becomes wrapped around the baby’s neck, causing a severe lack of oxygen to the brain — called hypoxia. This causes severe neurological damage that damages the baby’s cognitive abilities and even leads to cerebral palsy.
The doctor and the employer hospital are both liable for the malpractice, and a medical malpractice verdict would lead to extreme costs for the hospital and doctor. A birth injury indemnity fund limits hospital and doctor individual liability while still providing the injured child and family with access to appropriate compensation. By pooling resources into an indemnity fund, medical providers offset their risk and total costs, ideally without limiting patients from receiving the full compensation to which they are entitled. The indemnity fund then covers future medical costs without an undue burden on the medical system.
The Louisiana Patient’s Compensation Fund
Louisiana is one of nine states that maintains a Patient’s Compensation Fund to help with birth injuries. It is an off-budget state unit. It is 100% self-funded by premiums and investment proceeds and does not receive money from the general fund. It was first created in 1975 to help guarantee medical malpractice coverage and operates as an “excess insurer” for private health care providers within the state. Revised Statutes § 40:1231.1 sets forth specific definitions and limitations associated with the compensation fund under state law.
Medical providers have financial responsibility for the first $100,000 per claim but may enroll in the fund to cover the excess coverage costs. Most health care providers are enrolled in the Patient’s Compensation Fund, paying surcharges to support it. Birth injury victims can apply to the fund for continued medical costs, and it is often handled as part of medical malpractice litigation with the help of a qualified attorney.
Seeking Compensation From a Birth Injury Indemnity Fund
Patients need to know how to seek compensation from this fund when they are entitled to it. Every state’s fund is different, but in Louisiana, it is best to seek compensation with the help of a birth injury lawyer. Most patients must file a medical malpractice claim to win a judgment that would entitle them to access these funds. Injured mothers and children could then win compensation through either a settlement or a jury verdict.
If the judgment exceeds the doctor and hospital’s applicable policy limits and they subscribe to the Patient’s Compensation Fund, the family’s attorney can file the appropriate motions and documentation to seek compensation from the injury fund.
