I recently wrote on the topic of doctors being disciplined at the State Board level. As you may recall, doctors who had 10 or more malpractice payments were disciplined less than 1/3 of the time by their state’s Boards.

But what about malpractice claims? Shouldn’t they insure that doctors are held accountable, and therefore patients as a whole are safer?

The answer is no.

There are many reasons for this, but one may be that doctors do not expect to bear the full cost of harms caused by their negligence. Studies of medical errors consistently find that the vast majority of patients injured by medical error don’t file claims. And those who do bring claims often don’t recover.

It has been reported that, for every 10 incidents of medical malpractice, only one claim is filed in the US. A Harvard group found the number to be 7 to 1 in New York and Colorado, and 5 to 1 in Utah.

However, the Harvard group also looked specifically at serious injuries caused by medical malpractice. They looked at about 30,000 hospital records from New York, and found evidence of serious injury from medical malpractice in 280 records. Of those 280, only 8 brought a claim. Less than 3%. In Utah, they found 161 patients with serious injuries from medical malpractice. Only 4 brought a claim. Again, less than 3%.

And the trend is not encouraging. Fewer medical malpractice claims are being filed. Over the last 10 years, such claims fell by 18% in states reporting such data.

Ours may not be the best system for holding health care providers accountable for harms they cause, and compensating victims for their injuries. But the answer is not to make it harder for victims to sue. That makes everyone less safe.