Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Common, Payments Are Not

Kaiser Health News reports on the findings of a study published this month by the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that "only one in five malpractice lawsuits results in a payout. The authors conclude that the truth behind these numbers is complicated."

The study is Malpractice Risk According to Physician Specialty, Anupam B. Jena, M.D., Ph.D., Seth Seabury, Ph.D., Darius Lakdawalla, Ph.D., and Amitabh Chandra, Ph.D. N Engl J Med 2011; 365:629-636

A related Associated Press article on the study in the Philadelphia Inquirer carries these interesting statistics from the study...

• "Only 1 in 5 malpractice claims against doctors leads to a settlement or other payout"
• "Each year about 1 in 14 doctors is the target of a claim"
• "most physicians and virtually every surgeon will face at least one [malpractice claim] in their career"

The chart below summarizes lawsuits and payouts by specialty as found in the study.

To read the full study and methodology, including more charts like the one above, click on: Malpractice Risk According to Physician Specialty to go to www.nejm.org.

Medical Malpractice Claims Declining, Says Insurer

Schaumburg, Illinois – Data collected from 1,600 hospitals in years 1997 through 2007 reveals that health care organizations’ medical malpractice claim frequency is slightly declining and severity is leveling off, according to a report released by Zurich, an leading insurer of hospitals and health care organizations in North America.

The fifth annual Zurich benchmarking report on claims trends in the healthcare industry shows that claims severity, or the average amount per claim, has stabilized over the past several years. The average annual rise over the past 11 years is four percent. Additionally, Zurich reports that teaching and children’s hospitals have higher claim severity than acute care community hospitals and outpatient facilities. Non-profit hospitals have the lowest severity; and among non-profits, faith-based institutions have the lowest severity of all.

The report is now available online and can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/ajsqJS