In a recent article in Journal of Patient Safety, it was reported that fewer than 2% of physicians were accountable for more than 50% of all settlements made in medical malpractice cases. The analysis used data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal law that requires that all medical malpractice settlements, of any amount, have to be reported to the Data Bank.
It was set up so that doctors would not be able to move from state to state and avoid scrutiny of their malpractice histories. Any hospital to which a doctor applies for admitting privileges has to contact the Data Bank in order to find out about the doctor’s claims history. It is not open for inquiries from the public, however.
The article pointed out that only a small percentage of the physicians whose reported claim payouts were recorded in the Data Bank lost clinical privileges or were subject to licensing board action. In another study a year ago, it was found that 1% of doctors were responsible for 32% of paid claims. The conclusion: even with easy access to date showing that a few physicians are harming patients at a much higher rate that others physicians, our state medical disciplinary boards are doing little to protect those patients.
With the new Republican administration, it is unlikely that situation will change. Tom Price, M.D., the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, has frequently lambasted what he calls “lawsuit abuse,” and vows to enact laws that would prevent hospitals from reporting a claim to the Data Bank unless there have been hearings to protect the doctor.
He also will push laws to require “higher standards of evidence” for malpractice claims. This would make it even more difficult for such claims to be brought. At it is, of medical malpractice cases going to trial, fewer than 10% result in verdicts for the claimant. The health care providers win more than 90% of the lawsuits that are brought. Because of the high risk and cost of going to trial, attorneys in this area of law practice consider only a few claims to pursue.
