A study published in today’s The New England Journal of Medicine reported that 1% of physicians were responsible for 32% of the paid medical malpractice claims in the United States over the ten-year period that was analyzed by the researchers.
The authors’ reason for undertaking their analysis was their belief that if medical malpractice claim-prone physicians account for a substantial share of all medical malpractice claims, then the ability to reliably identify them at an early stage could guide efforts to improve medical care.
The National Practitioner Data Bank (“NPDB”) is an electronic information repository created by the U.S. Congress that contains information on medical malpractice payments and certain adverse actions related to health care practitioners, entities, providers, and suppliers. Federal law specifies the types of actions reported to the NPDB, who submits the reports, and who queries to obtain copies of the reports.
The recent study reviewed data reported to the NPDB from 2005 through 2014. The researchers analyzed 66,426 medical malpractice paid claims that involved 54,099 physicians in the United States. The researchers then calculated concentrations of medical malpractice claims among physicians.
The analysis conducted by the authors of the study resulted in their determination that approximately 1% of all physicians accounted for 32% of the paid medical malpractice claims. They determined that among the physicians who had paid medical malpractice claims during the study period, 84% had only one paid medical malpractice claim during the study period, which accounted for 68% of all paid medical malpractice claims during that period; 16% had at least two paid medical malpractice claims that accounted for 32% of all paid medical malpractice claims; and, 4% had at least three paid medical malpractice claims that accounted for 12% of all paid medical malpractice claims.
The study concluded that the risk of recurrence of a paid medical malpractice claim increased with the number of previous paid medical malpractice claims (the 2,160 physicians who had three medical malpractice claim payouts during the study period had three times the risk of incurring another paid medical malpractice claim – in absolute terms, they had a 24% chance of incurring another paid medical malpractice claim within two years).
The researchers also found that the risk of recurrence of a paid medical malpractice claim varied widely among medical specialties – the risk for neurosurgeons was four times greater than for psychiatrists.
The researchers concluded that over the ten-year period from 2005 through 2014, a small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid medical malpractice claims in the United States.
The fact that there are a small number of physicians in the United States who are responsible for multiple paid medical malpractice claims, and that these repeat offenders are responsible for a disproportionate share of all paid medical malpractice claims in the United States, will be no surprise to many medical malpractice lawyers in the United States, both on the plaintiff’s side, where they sometimes receive calls from multiple patients of the same doctor, claiming they were injured due to medical negligence, and on the defendant’s side, where the medical malpractice defense attorneys sometimes represent the same physicians in multiple medical malpractice claims.
What may be surprising to medical malpractice lawyers is the study’s primary finding: that 1% of U.S. physicians are responsible for 32% of all paid medical malpractice claims in the United States.
What is not subject to debate is that identifying the one-percenters and taking timely and appropriate actions to prevent them from becoming repeat medical negligence offenders in the future are necessary in order to reduce the unnecessary harm that victims of medical malpractice suffer, and the health care community would enjoy substantial monetary savings that could help reduce health care costs in the United States.
If you, a family member, or a loved one may have been harmed due to medical negligence in the United States, you should promptly find a medical malpractice lawyer in your state who may investigate your medical malpractice claim for you and represent you in a medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
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