JAY GALLAGHER
O-D Albany bureau

Medical errors -- not doctors' malpractice-insurance costs -- are a crisis in New York, a group of consumer advocates claimed Monday.

"Thousands die in New York every year as a result of substandard medical care," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. "The focus of the malpractice crisis should be improving medicine."

The group launched its attack a day before hundreds of doctors are expected to lobby at the Capitol for a bill that would limit the amount victims of doctor error can collect for pain and suffering to $250,000. Doctors claim that high jury verdicts have driven insurance rates to the point where some will have to go out of business.

There's also a move in Congress to limit the settlements nationally. But opponents point to cases like that of Jesica Santillan, the 17-year-old girl who died last month in North Carolina after getting a heart and lung transplant from an incompatible donor, as proof that the real problem is mistakes by doctors.

Between 3,000 and 6,000 people a year die in New York hospitals from preventable medical errors, according to a study done by Public Citizen, a consumer group.

"Contrary to assertions by the medical and insurance lobbies that 'skyrocketing liability exposure' threatens patient safety, the real threat is posed by the few dangerous doctors who commit most of the medical malpractice in New York," Public Citizen's Frank Clemente said.

But the head of the state Medical Society said the figures about hospital deaths, extrapolated from a 1984 national study, are outdated and wrong, and that settlements have to be limited to head off a crisis.

"The current liability system in New York must be changed," said the president, Dr. Ann C. Cea.

Some doctors are paying as much as 27 percent more this year than last for the same coverage, according to the society.

The consumer groups, on the other hand, claim that overall premiums paid barely increased from 1992 to 2002 -- $821.5 million a decade ago to $872.8 million last year.

According to the Public Citizen report, only 10 percent of New York doctors who have made three or more medical-malpractice payouts have ever been disciplined.

State Health Department spokesman William Van Slyke couldn't respond directly to that charge, but he said that "we are probably the most aggressive state in the nation" in disciplining doctors.

He said New York has taken away more doctor licenses than any state. Department figures show the state revoked 33 doctor licenses in 2001 and suspended 101 more. In addition, another 97 doctors surrendered their licenses that year, according to department figures.