Hey kids. I know some of you east coaster’s probably have a snow day today – we sure do. But that’s no reason to delay our surprise medical malpractice Pop Quiz (courtesy of the Center for Justice & Democracy’s new Medical Malpractice “By the Numbers” Briefing Book)! But we’ll try to make it a little easier this time. All the questions are “true or false,” so you have at least a 50% chance of passing. (You are welcome.) Good luck!
True or False:
Medical malpractice cases represent less than 5 percent of all state tort cases.
That’s true. According to state data examined by the National Center for State Courts, which is the one and only entity that compiles data like this, medical malpractice cases represent 4.6 percent of the total state tort caseloads. Surprised? Don’t be. This is consistent with NCSC data from at least the previous three years.
True or False:
According to a large, national medical malpractice insurance company, med mal insurance claims have dropped by half since 2003, and doctors are paying less for malpractice insurance today than they did in 2001, even without adjusting for inflation.
All true! What? That’s according to The Doctors Company, a company that happens to be one of the nation’s most vocal “tort reform” proponents so they kinda have an interest in “spinning” their data if they could. But they can’t. This can all be found in a recent Washington Post article. And see CJ&D briefing book for lots of other back-up.
True or False:
With rates so low, medical malpractice insurance industry profits must be suffering!
So false. According to the Medical Liability Monitor, “The medical professional liability insurance industry is continuing its unprecedented run of consecutive profitable years in 2016. Never before has the industry witnessed such an unbroken string of annual favorable results, many of which were very favorable.”
True or False:
Many studies show that medical malpractice lawsuits put physicians at a significant risk of insolvency or personal bankruptcy.
False! Are you kidding? Researchers looked and found, “No study has ever shown that malpractice claims threaten doctors in any state with a significant risk of insolvency.” And especially if they're properly insured!
True or False:
When a state caps damages, health care costs related to physician spending (Medicare Part B) drops.
False! Not only that, it goes up! Researchers have found that caps on damages, “do not significantly affect Medicare Part A (hospital) spending. However, caps predict 4-5% higher Part B [physician] spending.”
True or False:
Doctors in high-risk specialties like neurosurgical spine surgery, who practice in states that have limited patients’ rights to sue, order significantly fewer tests and procedures because they are less likely to be sued (i.e., less “defensive medicine).
That is false. According to the American Board of Neurological Surgeons, “[s]tate-based medical legal environment is not a significant driver of increased defensive medicine associated with neurosurgical spine procedures.”
True or False:
Along the same lines, New York State’s “legal environment,” (remember, New York does not cap damages for injured patients) is a significant reason why newly trained physicians may leave the state and practice elsewhere.
Completely false! (This needed some emphasis.) According to the most recent report from the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany School of Public Health, newly-trained doctors “who were planning to practice outside of New York were asked their main reason for leaving [the state] [and] the most common reasons given were proximity to family (28%), better salary outside New York (14%), better jobs in desired locations outside New York (13%), better jobs in desired setting outside New York (7%), and better jobs outside New York that meet Visa requirements (7%).” The category “Cost of Malpractice Insurance” was practically dead last on this list. Even the general category “Other Reason” outranked “Cost of Malpractice Insurance.” New York’s liability laws or legal environment were not even listed.
True or False:
43 percent of U.S. hospitals get a safety grade of C, D or F.
Sadly, this is true. Leapfrog found, “After analyzing July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2015 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data plus results from a Leapfrog 2016 survey of hospitals vis-a-vis 30 national performance measures [that] 43 percent of the 2,633 hospitals studied received a C, D or F safety grade.”
True or False:
Most health care professionals say that patient misidentification happens frequently or all the time.
Unfortunately, this is also true. According to the December 2016 Ponemon Institute’s Patient Misidentification Report, “64% of respondents say that patient misidentification happens frequently or all the time in a typical healthcare facility, which means that the industry standard reporting of a 8-10% patient misidentification rate likely underrepresents the problem.” And “86% of providers have witnessed or have known of a medical error due to misidentification.” This type of mistake is so easily prevented. So outrageous.
True or False:
In military hospitals, where patients harmed by medical negligence are prohibited from suing, patient safety is getting worse and worse.
Sadly, this is also true. According to recent research, 174 “sentinel events” (i.e., unexpected occurrences involving serious injury or death) were recorded at military treatment facilities in 2015, a 56 percent increase from the previous year. Among the most frequent “sentinel events” – injury to the mother or fetus during childbirth (at least 32 instances); wrong site surgery (25 instances); delay in treatment (22 instances); and unintended retained foreign object (20 instances).
Don’t we all deserve better?
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