Malpractice Awards Continue to Fall, Even as Health Costs Rise, Report Says
Austin American-Statesman—March 5th, 2010
As doctors and their supporters urge Congress to revamp medical malpractice as part of a health care system overhaul, payments in malpractice cases continue to go down — even as health care costs rise, says an analysis this week by Public Citizen.
“The number of medical malpractice payments made on behalf of physicians in 2009 was the lowest since the creation of the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which has tracked medical malpractice payments since 1990,” the report says. “The cumulative value of malpractice payments in 2009 was the lowest since 1999 in actual (unadjusted) dollars. If adjusted for inflation, payments were … either the lowest or the second lowest on record.”
The report goes on to say that based on estimates of medical errors and deaths from malpractice, just one in 57 deaths was compensated, meaning that between 83 percent and 98 percent of deaths from medical negligence did not produce a damage award. Keep in mind, the death also might not have produced a lawsuit.
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