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10 Things You Should Know About …MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

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http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/10%20med%20mal%20myth.doc.pdf

 

10 Things You Should Know About …

 

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

 

10 Things You Should Know About …

 

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

 

1. Insurance companies are paying victims of medical negligence on average

approximately

 

$30,000. Average payouts have stayed virtually flat for the last decade.1

 

2. Medical malpractice costs, as a percentage of national health care

expenditures, are at an all time

 

low, 0.55 percent.2

 

3. According to the National Academy of Sciences, up to 98,000 people are killed

each year by

 

medical errors in hospitals – far more than die from car accidents, breast

cancer or AIDS.3

 

4. Total national costs (lost income, lost household production, disability and

health care costs) of

 

negligence in hospitals are estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion

each year.4

 

5. Eight times as many patients are injured by medical malpractice as ever file

a claim; 16 times as

 

many suffer injuries as receive any compensation.5

 

6. According to the National Center for State Courts, there has been no change

in the volume of

 

medical malpractice cases in the last five years.6

 

7. Injured medical malpractice patients win before juries in only 23 percent of

cases7; in 1992, the

 

rate was 7.5 percent higher at 30.5 percent.8 Only 1.1 percent of medical

malpractice plaintiffs who

 

prevail at trial are awarded punitive damages.9

 

8. According to studies in several states, there is no correlation between where

physicians decide to

 

practice and state liability laws or insurance rates.10

 

9. Tort law limits do not lower insurance rates; states with little or no tort

law restrictions have

 

experienced approximately the same changes in insurance rates as those states

that have enacted

 

severe restrictions on victims’ rights.11

 

10. Numerous hospital and medical procedures have been made safer as a result of

lawsuits,

 

including anesthesia procedures, catheter placements, drug prescriptions,

hospital staffing levels,

 

infection control, nursing home care and trauma care.12

 

###

 

2

 

NOTES

 

1 Memo from Joanne Doroshow to Interested Persons with attached spreadsheet

prepared by J. Robert

 

Hunter, Director of Insurance, Consumer Federation of America, November 14,

2001.

 

2 Ibid.

 

3 Kohn, Corrigan, Donaldson, Eds., To Err is Human; Building a Safer Health

System, Institute of Medicine,

 

National Academy Press: Washington, DC (1999).

 

4 Ibid.

 

5 Harvard Medical Practice Study, Patients, Doctors and Lawyers: Medical Injury,

Malpractice Litigation,

 

and Patient Compensation in New York (1990).

 

6 Examining the Work of State Courts, 2001; A National Perspective from the

Court Statistics Project

 

(2001), p. 31. This finding is based on medical malpractice data from 14 states.

 

7 Ibid at 94.

 

8 " Tort Trials and Verdicts in Large Counties, 1996, " U.S. Department of

Justice, Office of Justice

 

Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-179769 (August 2000), p. 9.

 

9 Ibid at 7.

 

10 Wlazelek, Ann, " Doctors’ ad campaign baseless; They’re not fleeing Pa., but

malpractice straits create

 

‘hostile’ climate, " Morning Call, March 24, 2002; " Doctors not leaving

Pittsburgh despite costly insurance, "

 

Associated Press, November 12, 2001; Goldstein, Josh, " Recent Census of Doctors

Show No Flight from

 

Pennsylvania, " Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2, 2001; Leonard, Martha, " State

has seen sharp increase in

 

number of doctors, " Sunday Gazette Mail, February 25, 2001; Kinney and Gronfein,

" Indiana’s Malpractice

 

System: No-Fault by Accident, " 54 Law & Contemp. Probs. 169, 188 (1991), cited

in Galanter, Marc, " Real

 

World Torts, " 55 Maryland L. Rev. 1093, 1152-1153 (1996); Kinney, " Malpractice

Reform in the 1990s,

 

Past Disappointment, Future Success? " 20 J. Health Pol. Pol’y & L. 99, 120

(1996), cited in Galanter, Marc,

 

" Real World Torts, " 55 Maryland L. Rev. 1093, 1152 (1996).

 

11 J. Robert Hunter and Joanne Doroshow, Premium Deceit: The Failure of " Tort

Reform " to Cut Insurance

 

Prices, Center for Justice & Democracy (1999).

 

12 Meghan Mulligan and Emily Gottlieb, Lifesavers: CJ & D’s Guide to Lawsuits that

Protect Us All, Center

 

for Justice & Democracy (2002).

 

 

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