Cognitive Bias Is An Important Cause Of Diagnostic Errors
August 11, 2013
In an article appearing on June 27, 2013 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the effect of cognitive bias in reaching incorrect diagnoses was discussed. It was noted that the rate of diagnostic errors is estimated to be between 10% and 15%, with the rate highest for specialties such as emergen[...]
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Medical Malpractice Physician Survey Results
August 2, 2013
In a recently reported survey of physicians in the United States, almost 1,400 of the responding physicians reported that they had been sued for medical malpractice (approximately 40% of the respondents had been named in a medical malpractice lawsuit, with 9% being named as the only defendant a[...]
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New York Surgeon Removes Wrong Kidney
July 26, 2013
A 76-year-old New York man with kidney disease was scheduled to have surgery to remove his diseased kidney (both of his kidneys were diseased but only the more diseased kidney was to be removed). For some unexplained reason, his surgeon removed the wrong kidney (his less diseased kidney). Realizin[...]
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Medical Malpractice Payout Statistics For 2012
May 4, 2013
The results of an analysis of the medical malpractice payouts during 2012 that are reported in the National Practitioner Data Bank have been recently published. The analysis found that there were 12,142 total medical malpractice payouts in the United States during 2012, representing $3.6 billion i[...]
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Surgical Malpractice Makes Hospitals More Money
April 18, 2013
In a research study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on April 17, 2013, the researchers found that hospitals make more money when patients suffer surgical complications compared to when patients do not experience surgical complications if the patients are on Medicare or [...]
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Four Truths About The U.S. Medical Malpractice System
March 19, 2013
In prior blogs we have discussed myths regarding the medical malpractice system in the United States. Today, we blog about truths regarding the U.S. medical malpractice system. Truth One: Medical Malpractice Cases Take A Long Time To Resolve The average amount of time between when medical malpr[...]
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Nursing Home Claims Characteristics
February 8, 2013
The results of a study reported in 2011 regarding nursing home claims made against nursing homes operated by the five largest nursing home chains in the United States (for the period from 2000 through 2006 for one of the nursing home chains, the period from 2000 through 2005 for a second chain of [...]
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