FACTS & FIGURES: Medical Malpractice Statistics

• Between 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die in hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors.
• NPDB data shows that the median payment to a victim in 2000 was just $125,000.
• Final Verdicts favoring injured plaintiffs, occur in only four percent of medical malpractice cases.
• Just 5 percent of U.S. doctors are responsible for 54 percent of all malpractice. Source: National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB).
• Malpractice insurance costs amount to only 3.2 percent of the average physician's revenues according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)
• Independent MedPAC economists also reported that premiums rose in the aggregate in 2002 by just 4.4 percent.
• 2 million hospital patients acquire infections that result in 90,000 deaths each year. One CDC expert says that "many hospital personnel fail to follow basic infection control, such as hand washing between patient contacts." Source: Center for Disease Control (CDC).
• According to a recently released NPDB report, there are about 5,000 physicians who have paid four or more medical malpractice judgments or settlements since 1990.
• By the time a physician has paid four awards, he or she stands only a 15 percent chance of being sanctioned.
• Even physicians who have paid ten or more settlements are disciplined at only a 40 percent rate.
• The Medicare and Medicaid programs sanctioned fewer than one percent of doctors who've made malpractice payments from receiving federal dollars.
• The annual costs to society for medical errors in hospitals at $17 billion to $29 billion.
• Only one in eight preventable medical errors committed in New York hospitals results in a malpractice claim according to a 1990 Harvard Study.
• From 1996 through 1999, Florida hospitals reported 19,885 incidents but only 3,177 medical malpractice claims. In other words, for every 6 medical errors only 1 claim is filed.
• The number of new medical malpractice claims declined by about four percent between 1995 and 2000. There were 90,212 claims filed in 1995 and 86,480 claims filed in 2000. (National Association of Insurance Commissioners).
  Punitive Damages are awarded in less than 1 percent of medical malpractice cases. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1996.)
• Malpractice insurance costs amount to only 3.2 percent of the average physician's revenues.
• While medical costs have increased by 113 percent since 1987, the total amount spent on medical malpractice insurance has increased by just 52 percent over that time, less than half of medical services inflation.
• The size of damage awards has been steady since 1991. The mean payout was $135,941 in 2001, up 8.7 percent from $125,000 in 2000.
• Over ten years, malpractice payouts have grown an average of 6.2 percent per year. That's almost exactly the rate of medical inflation: an average of 6.7 percent between 1990 and 2001.
• In 2001, only 895 out of 16,676 payouts, or about 5 percent, topped $1 million. (National Practitioner Data Bank, as quoted in Business Week, March 3, 2003.)
• Only 5 percent of doctors (1 out of 20) are responsible for 54 percent of malpractice payouts. (National Practitioner Data Bank, Sept. 1, 1990 - Sept. 30, 2002.)
• Only 8 percent of doctors (1 out of 12) with 2 or more malpractice payouts have been disciplined by their state medical board. (National Practitioner Data Bank, Sept. 1, 1990 - Sept. 30, 2002.)
• Only 17 percent of doctors (1 out of 6) who have made 5 or more malpractice payouts have been disciplined by their state medical board. (National Practitioner Data Bank, Sept. 1, 1990 - Sept. 30, 2002.)
• From 1997 to 2000 median medical malpractice payment rose an average of 8.5 percent a year, the average premium for single health insurance coverage increased over that time period 9.5 percent a year.
• New insurance industry data and analysis, released 11-15-03, shows that the average medical malpractice insurance payout, or closed claim, has been only $28,524 over the last decade. Payouts in 2001 follow the same low pattern. This figure includes all jury verdicts, settlements and other costs used by insurers to fight claims in court.
• Medical malpractice insurers are paying nothing in 77 percent of all claims filed; in the 23 percent of cases where insurers pay anything, the average claim is only $107,587.
• According to the Harvard Medical Practice Study, only one in eight malpractice victims ever files a claim for compensation.
• Average payouts have stayed virtually flat for the last decade. The average payout is approximately $30,000. ("average" payouts are calculated differently than "mean" payments).
• Medical malpractice costs as a percentage of national health care expenditures are 0.55% an all-time low.
• Only one in eight injured victims ever files a malpractice claim. Only one in 16 ever receives any compensation. Only one in 32 win a jury verdict.
• Only 895 out of 16,676 medical malpractice payouts, or about 5%, in 2001 topped $1 million, up from 506 in 1996, according to government data.
• There has been no change in the volume of medical malpractice cases in the last five years. Injured malpractice plaintiffs win before juries in only 23% of cases.
• Only 1.1% of medical malpractice plaintiffs who prevail at trial are awarded punitive damages.
• Nov. 2003 GAO report: from 1996 through 2000 into the average per capita payments were $10 for states with no economic damage caps compared to $17 for states with limited reforms.
• Nevada, which adopted a $350,000 cap in 2002, discovered that only two doctors were to blame for $14 million of the $22 million in claims awarded in one recent year. Both are still practicing.
• In Florida medical malpractice claims rose just 3.7% from 1997 to 2000, according to the National Center for State Courts.
• "Medical malpractice reform is bad medicine…Yet despite this epidemic of [medical] errors, fewer than 2% of the victims of medical malpractice ever sue their doctors … verdicts of $1 million occur in only 4% of medical malpractice cases, and they are usually reduced to a median of $235,000 upon final judgment."
  --BusinessInsurance.com, Joanne Wojcik, Senior Editor, Commentary, 2/24/03

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