Texas Watch—Consumer Protection. Corporate Accountability. Citizen Advocacy.

U.S. Justice Department officials in Washington are weighing whether to investigate potential civil rights violations of psychiatric patients at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

Sarah Saldaña, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said the review stems from news stories in The Dallas Morning News exposing cases of neglect, violence and questionable deaths.

The articles “implicate potential federal violations,” Saldaña said, addressing The News’ editorial board. “We’ll look at everything.”

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

Rep. Craig Eiland (D-Galveston) who serves as the Vice Chairman of the House Committee on Insurance sat down with the Texas Commissioner of Insurance, Eleanor Kitzman, to discuss several issues including his concerns of State Farm cancelling 11,278 policies along the Texas coast in Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers, Jefferson and Orange Counties. At that time, he hand delivered a letter expressing his concerns and asking that the Texas Department of Insurance:

1) make recommendations before next session of legislature that coastal and/or other legislators could sponsor and give the Texas Department of Insurance the tools it needs to prevent and/or punish this type of abusive policyholder activity;

2) place a data call on State Farm to determine how many of the policyholders who have their home, life and auto through State Farm, who will now be forced to at least obtain their homeowners elsewhere, the potential impact this could have upon life insurance policies, and/or ability to obtain new multi-line discounts from other carriers.

3) track the claims data for all 11,278 of these policies to determine which ones of them end up in TWIA or the FAIR Plan and what their subsequent loss histories are to determine if any of those losses were caused by State Farm’s claims practices before dumping these policyholders on TWIA and the FAIR Plan.

Read More: The Anahuac Progress

Maybe you thought they were a little kooky when I wrote about them last year.

Drivers on Preston Road sometimes taunt them. The middle-aged Frisco couple pickets every Sunday afternoon outside a Far North Dallas nursing home.

Bill and Kelly Putnam know that officials at the nursing home, Signature Pointe on the Lake, try to explain them away as “unstable.”

But after 31/2 years of protest, the Putnams finally have official verification of what they have long alleged — that errors inside Signature Pointe were involved in the gruesome death of Kelly’s father.

Last month, the Texas Board of Nursing issued an order of reprimand against a former Signature Pointe nurse. After lengthy investigation, the board found that Rosa Aurora Garcia committed major medical errors.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

The Texas Department of Insurance has just approved a homeowners-insurance-rate hike for Allstate Insurance of 5.7 percent and 9.8 percent for its companies.

Allstate Texas Lloyds had asked for a 5.7 percent average statewide increase. Allstate Fire & Casualty Insurance Co. sought approval for a 9.8 percent rate average hike.

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Consumer groups are suspicious of the rate-hike approval. According to Alex Winslow, executive director of consumer group Texas Watch, “Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman hasn’t met a rate increase she didn’t like.”

Texas Watch reported that the State Integrity Project gave the TDI an “F” on its corruption scorecard, and Winslow says Allstate’s increases, which run into the double digits, have made Texas rates, already the highest in the nation, unaffordable for fixed-income homeowners.

Read More: Property Casualty 360

AUSTIN — State Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman has approved Allstate Insurance’s increased premiums for homeowners coverage, including a hike between 3.5 percent and 7 percent in the Dallas area.

All three of the state’s major home insurers — Allstate, Farmers and State Farm — have now won approval from Kitzman in recent months to increase their homeowners rates.

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Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, a consumer group active in insurance issues, criticized the recent rate decisions by Kitzman, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Perry and took over as commissioner in August.

“More than half of all homeowners have seen their insurance rates go up recently — many by double-digit percentages. And, what are insurance customers getting for these higher prices? Junk policies that cost more but cover less,” Winslow said.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

The Texas Department of Insurance received an “F” from the State Integrity Investigation’s Public Corruption Scorecard, a 50-state survey of public institutions and their susceptibility to corruption.

“This report confirms what Texas policyholders have known for years: the insurance industry holds too much power and sway in our state,” said Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch, a statewide citizens advocacy organization active on insurance issues. “Conflict of interest rules are weak and ineffective, the public doesn’t have access to crucial information, and TDI is an agency rife with political interference.” Read More »

Insurance customers deserve full, unfettered access to as much information as possible when it comes to how insurance companies attempt to justify their rates. However, many insurance companies want to shield this information from public view. The Texas Department of Insurance recently asked for input into ways to clarify what information included in insurance rate filings is subject to public disclosure. Texas Watch submitted the following comments. Read More »

In a case testing the boundaries of tort reform, the Texas Supreme Court is weighing whether two female patients’ assault allegations against a doctor are health-care liability claims under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 74, which caps punitive damages at $250,000.

Chapter 74 was the centerpiece of an omnibus tort reform law that took effect in 2003. The law’s proponents wanted to curtail rising med-mal premiums and provide patients with better access to physicians. Opponents argued the law would insulate doctors from the consequences of tortious conduct.

The law, also known as H.B. 4, requires plaintiffs to file expert reports in suits that involve medical malpractice allegations; otherwise courts can dismiss those suits. Chapter 74 caps punitive damages against defendant-doctors at $250,000; but under Chapter 41 of the code, the limitations on recovery do not apply to conduct described as a felony in the Texas Penal Code.

Read More: Texas Lawyer

Here’s a quiz for Patient Safety Awareness Week (and after): The number of Americans who die annually from preventable medical errors is:

A) 44,000-98,000, according to the Institute of Medicine

B) None, thanks to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s “100,000 Lives Campaign”

C) 90,000

D) No one’s really counting

The correct answer is, “D,” but I confess it’s a trick question. With a slight twist in wording, the right answer could also be “C,” from an as-yet-unpublished new estimate with a unique methodology. (More below.) The main point of this quiz, however, is to explore what we actually know about the toll taken by medical mistakes and to dispel some of the confusion about the magnitude of harm.

Read More: Health Affairs Blog

As home insurance premiums skyrocket this year, many insurers are cutting back on what used to be standard coverage.

Damage from wind, hail and sinkholes has been stripped from many basic homeowner policies. Last month, Allstate reduced coverage for roof replacements for new customers in Kansas after doing the same in Oklahoma late last year. The North Carolina Farm Bureau plans to eliminate wind damage coverage for many homes in the state. It follows State Farm, which dropped wind and hail coverage in southern Louisiana last year. “They’re just cutting back on the coverage that they offer and raising the premiums so consumers are between a rock and a hard place,” says Linda Sherry, director of national priorities at Consumer Action, a consumer advocacy group.

Read More: SmartMoney