Research: Medical Malpractice Payouts NOT on the Rise
July 16, 2009 8:34 am Medical MalpracticeIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Two new independent studies point out the truth that doctors and health care lobbyists are careful to ignore in their rhetoric about malpractice lawsuits: Settlement values are DECREASING, NOT increasing, in medical malpractice cases.
The New York Public Interest Research Group recently found that “the amount of money paid for malpractice claims in New York has actually fallen in recent years, and that the number of overall claims has remained ‘remarkably stable.’ ” You can read the study, “Contraindication: New York’s Medical Malpractice Insurance Hikes are Contrary to Payment Trends,” here.
Another study, “Medical Malpractice Payments Hit Record Lows,” released by Public Citizen, an independent government watchdog group, reinforces the findings by the NYPIRG. Public Citizen compared information about medical malpractice payments and patient safety estimates. They found that although medical malpractice payments were at or near record lows in 2008, the low payout was not caused by fewer claims.
These two studies bring to light a shocking fact: medical malpractice is occurring at the same rate, but victims are not receiving as much compensation.
In 1990, the federal government established the National Practitioner Data Bank. In 2008, for the third straight year, medical malpractice payments declined – to their lowest level EVER. The 11,037 payments in 2008 were 30.7 percent lower than the average number of payments recorded by the NPDB in all previous years.
According to Public Citizen, “the cost of the medical malpractice liability system – if measured broadly by adding all malpractice insurance premiums – fell to less than 0.6 percent of the $2.1 trillion in total national health care costs in 2006, the most recent year for which the necessary data to make such comparisons are available.”
That’s right. For all the griping you may hear from the medical profession about the high cost of malpractice insurance and payouts, the numbers don’t lie. Less than 1% of health care costs go to dealing with medical malpractice.
As a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney, there’s another study I would like to see the results of: How many patients suffer avoidable injuries compared to how many actually bring a lawsuit?
According to Public Citizen, reprinted at Consumer Affairs.com, “Medical malpractice is so common, and litigation over it so rare, that between three and seven Americans die from medical errors for every one who receives a payment for any malpractice claim.”
Thanks for reading,
Jim
_________________________________________
James B. Reed, Esq.
Personal Injury & Malpractice Attorney
Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William St., Elmira, NY 14902
Tel. (607) 733-8866 Fax. (607) 732-6062
Toll Free 1-800-943-3529
mailto:jreed@zifflaw.com http://www.zifflaw.com
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July 17th, 2009 at 6:10 am
What % of the toal expense of malpractice actually goes to the injured party? Maybe 30%? Shouldnt the injured party get more? If 3-4% of all med mal actually turns into a claim, and that small figure has crippled the system, shouldnt the methods and forums for resolution change? Arbitration cures plenty
. My career has been medmal since 1985.
Here is how we fix it: Change the forum to binding arbitration. The Doc gets a jury of his peers, the hollywood factor that amps up verdicts goes away, the injured party gets the money quickly, premiums come down, defensive medicine plummets, policies become affordable, the cost of healthcare drops, the courts get declogged, while the attorneys still make a nice living. I could go on !!
Caps and sliding scales are not the answer. There is too much money to be made by the noninjured. Meritorious claims should be compensated ,but I have settled too many claims where everybody makes alot of money other than the injured party. Eradication of med mal is a pipe dream. We can trim it some but the question is about a better way for taking care of the injured without financially crippling the system. – Jim OHare AIC AIS VP med mal claims PIC
July 21st, 2009 at 8:15 am
Jim–
I know you work for a medical malpractice carrier so it’s no surprise to me that your solution to the problem is one that sets up a system that protects the Dr’s by creating a jury of his peers, rather than a jury of fellow citizens. Dr’s sitting in judgment of Dr’s? Give me a break! How would that be fair? Of course, you want Dr’s to whitewash the misconduct of other Dr’s but that is simply ridiculous. The medical profession has a HORRIBLE history of self-policing and in fact the medical profession has consistently gone of it’s way to silence any Dr or nurse brave enough to blow the whistle on medical misconduct. I am sure you are aware of the Texas case where 2 nurses are being criminally indicted because they had the guts to file a complaint about a bad Dr and the bad Dr retaliated by filing a criminal complaint against them for harassment. The Texas case is a public example of what goes on every day behind closed doors– Dr’s or nurses who speak up are drummed out of the medical profession.
As to your claim that only 30% of the recovery goes to the malpractice victim, you are dead wrong. In NY, because of the strength of the medical lobby in Albany, attorneys handling medical malpractice claims are NOT entitled to charge the standard 33% fee that they charge in every other type of case, but are stuck with a sliding fee scale that only permits a 10% fee on any recovery over $1.25M. How is it fair that if I sue a lawyer, a banker, an architect or an engineer, I can charge a 33% fee but if I sue an almighty Dr, I am regulated by state law to a much lower fee? Don’t get me wrong, I accept the law and I still handle these cases because I know first-hand just how important my work is to malpractice victims, but the fee issue is just one more way the deck is stacked against the victims.
Obviously, we strongly disagree with one another but I felt it necessary to respond to at least the two most glaring examples of your mis-analysis of how to fix the system.
Jim Reed
NY Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Upstate NY