Guest guest Posted March 4, 2003 Report Share Posted March 4, 2003 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). Gettingwell- / Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc. To , e-mail to: Gettingwell- Or, go to our group site: Gettingwell Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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