MEDICAL MALPRACTICE STATISTICS

Healthcare professionals usually provide a caring service with a high standard of excellence for their patients however medical malpractice statistics prove that there are occasions when things go wrong. Negligence occurs when a healthcare professional fails to act with the care, skill and learning of the average prudent reputable member of the medical profession in that particular area of practice. Performance is judged on what others in the same discipline do for their patients who are located in the same geographic area :-

• According to current medical malpractice statistics approximately 1% of patients treated in hospitals are injured, and one-quarter of those may have died as a result of clinical negligence which represents almost 250,000 injuries in addition to 80,000 deaths from negligence in American hospitals. Of that number, 7,000 patients died as a result of prescription errors or drug dispensing errors
• The median payment for clinical negligence claims averages about $135,000. Approximately one in twenty claims attracts damages in excess of $1million.
• It is estimated that in total over 100,000 US citizens die every year as a result of preventable mistakes by healthcare professionals.
• Medical malpractice statistics show that the cost to society is estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion whereas the medical insurance premiums paid by healthcare professionals are in the region of $7 billion.
• Less than 1 in 200 doctors face any professional sanctions each year which represents about 3,000 serious disciplinary actions taken in total annually by state medical boards throughout the country.
• The National Practitioner Data Bank indicates that 5% of doctors are responsible for over 50% of claims.
• Average insurance costs amount to between 3% and 4% of a physician's gross income according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
• In medical malpractice stastistics compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a U.S. Healthcare Industry survey company, more than 80% of healthcare professionals indicated that they had personal knowledge of major quality of care issues or had witnessed at least some medical mistakes during their careers.
• Approximately 5,000 physicians have paid four or more negligence settlements in the last 10 years and only 15% of those have received any professional sanctions.
• Only 13% of preventable clinical accidents results in a claim and punitive damages are awarded in less than 1 percent of cases.
• Insurance costs to physicians have increased at less than half of medical services inflation over the last 10 years.
• The healthcare industry generates over $1,000 million dollars every year. Hospitals generate over $400 billion dollars, and doctors generate over $200 billion dollars annually.
• There is no annual growth in the number of new claims.

We can get you the best representation available anywhere in the country and our lawyers deal with claims on a contingency basis which means they don’t get paid unless they succeed. If you would like free telephone advice from an expert just complete the contact form.