2% of physicians account for half of the malpractice payments

Nurses Safety

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  • Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

2% of Physicians Involved in Half of Malpractice Settlements | Medpage Today

The Detection, Analysis, and Significance of Physician Clust... : Journal of Patient Safety

A very interesting study. A significant limitation of the study is the lack of physician speciality as linked to malpractice payouts. My 34 years of experience tells me that delivering babies, neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, orthopedic surgery and anesthesiology tends to have significantly larger payouts than other specialties. I would expect a large proportion of the total payout amounts to be within these specialties. Interesting to contemplate if risk management/medical staff/the licensing board should start increased scrutiny of someone with more than one claim.

ComeTogether, LPN

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.
2% of Physicians Involved in Half of Malpractice Settlements | Medpage Today

The Detection, Analysis, and Significance of Physician Clust... : Journal of Patient Safety

A very interesting study. A significant limitation of the study is the lack of physician speciality as linked to malpractice payouts. My 34 years of experience tells me that delivering babies, neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, orthopedic surgery and anesthesiology tends to have significantly larger payouts than other specialties. I would expect a large proportion of the total payout amounts to be within these specialties. Interesting to contemplate if risk management/medical staff/the licensing board should start increased scrutiny of someone with more than one claim.

Sadly, I've been involved in one of these cases, as a plaintiff. In my situation, the Dr. practiced outside of his scope, although not according to the law.

A podiatrist put a 2.5 inch canulated bone screw in my heel - except he missed and I ended up walking around with the tip of the screw on my tibial nerve for 5 months before I finally saw an orthopedic surgeon who figured it out with a CT and corrected it. (Two more surgeries).

I wish the doc involved in my case would be investigated, but because I settled with him I don't think he even has to disclose. The whole thing was horrible and I nearly ended my nursing career before I started.

This was in 2013 and It just finally got settled a few months ago.

Miserable process, and as an aside it's incredibly hard to sue a doctor, not to mention expensive.

MaddieMT

3 Posts

It's an interesting study. I hope it generates follow-up studies. Besides medical specialties, there are a great many variables that could contribute to increased malpractice rates in the clusters: experience/training, patient load, type of practice (primarily hospital, clinic, private practice), location (geographical, urban/suburban/rural), population served (socio-economic group, age, educational level, average level of medical care the patient population receives, etc.), length of time in which to file claim (for example, obstreticians in my state could be sued until the baby turned 18), bedside manner, documentation skills, and so on.

I had to have emergency surgery because my doctor didn't read the results of my imaging study, instead reading only an addendum at the end. He was a great doc, but he carried far too large a patient load (no, I didn't sue). Then there was my chronic pain support group, 75% of whom had landed there by the actions of one doctor (horror stories).

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