According to Forbes Advisor, the average medical malpractice settlement between 2009 and 2014 was $329,565. Because the average medical malpractice settlement was calculated by dividing the total amount of reported medical malpractice settlements by the number of claimants who received the reported settlements, the $329,565 may be misleading because there are very few very large medical malpractice settlements and many more smaller medical malpractice settlements (the largest medical malpractice payout in 2019 was $205 million for a newborn who suffered a catastrophic brain injury during birth). Also, up to 80% to 90% of medical malpractice claims are dismissed without a settlement or result in a defense verdict.
From 1992 to 2014, a total of 280,368 medical malpractice claims were reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) as paid on behalf of physicians (for 175,667 physicians). The rate of paid medical malpractice claims for all physicians declined by 55.7%, from 20.1 per 1000 physician-years during 1992-1996, to 8.9 per 1000 physician-years during 2009-2014, with the decrease occurring across all medical specialties.
Among all paid claims, neurosurgery had the largest mean payment ($469,222) and dermatology had the smallest mean payment ($189,065). From 1992-1996 to 2009-2014, the mean payment, adjusted to 2014 dollars, increased by 23.3%, from $286,751 to $353,473, varying by medical specialty and was significant for 16 of the 24 specialties. The increases ranged from $17,431 in general practice to $138,708 in pathology and $114, 410 in gastroenterology. The 1% of physicians with the highest number of paid claims had 7.6% of all paid claims.
The most common type of medical malpractice allegation was an error in diagnosis (31.8%) followed by errors related to surgery (26.9%) and errors related to medication or treatment (24.5%). The percentage of paid claims in which diagnostic errors were alleged was highest in pathology (87.0%) and radiology (83.9%), and lowest in anesthesiology (3.5%) and plastic surgery (4.3%). However, plastic surgery had the highest percentage of paid claims related to alleged surgical errors (73.3%).
The medical specialties with the highest percentage of paid claims related to alleged errors in medication or treatment were psychiatry (55.8%) and dermatology (45.1%) followed by general practice (41.4%), cardiology (40.0%), and pulmonology (39.6%). Anesthesiology and obstetrics and gynecology were the only medical specialties with most paid claims in the other category (66.5% and 53.4%, respectively), which reflected the inclusion in the other category of anesthesia-related claims (60.5% of overall claims in anesthesia) and obstetrics-related claims (50.5% of overall claims in obstetrics and gynecology).
The study that reported the statistics above concluded: “From 1992 to 2014, there was a marked reduction in the rate of malpractice claims paid on behalf of physicians, with a concurrent increase in both mean payment amounts (adjusted to 2014 dollars) and the rate of catastrophic payments. There were wide differences in rates of paid claims and characteristics of the alleged injuries across specialties.”
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