REUTERS: 1% of U.S. Docs Responsible for 1/3 of Malpractice Payments

In an article released on January 27, Gene Emery of Reuters writes that a large portion of the malpractice claims that result in payments to patients are caused by a small fraction of doctors in the United States.

Key Facts:

• "Almost one third of the cases were sparked by a patient's death. About 1 percent of physicians had at least two paid claims against them and those doctors accounted for 32 percent of paid claims."
• "One hundred twenty six doctors had more than five paid claims against them."
• "The median payment among all claims was nearly $205,000."
• "Doctors who accumulated two lawsuits where money was paid out were twice as likely to be successfully sued for malpractice a third time compared to doctors who only had one paid claim against them. Doctors with more than five paid claims were 12 times more likely to face a subsequent claim."
• "Compared to general practitioners, recurrence rates were roughly two times higher in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery and general surgery. The recurrence rate was highest for neurosurgeons, at 2.3 times that of GPs."
• "They found that physicians under age 35 were two thirds less likely to have to pay on a malpractice claim after an initial payment." 
• "The odds of paying out on a subsequent claim were 38 percent higher among male doctors than female physicians." 
• "Doctors trained outside the United States were 12 percent more likely to have to pay out on more than one claim."

Mr. Emery derived these statistics from an article published by Dr. David Studdert et al. in The New England Journal of Medicine, titled "Prevalence and Characteristics of Physicians Prone to Malpractice Claims."