Clients often ask me “do I need to come to court with you for our court hearing?” In this short video, I answer this common question and let you know what role you have in the lawsuit process and what …
Nursing Home Guide: Medicare’s Nursing Home Checklist
In order to choose the best nursing home or long-term care facility for your loved one, Medicare offers several tools to compare facilities, look up facility rankings and to learn more about each individual facility. Medicare also offers a comprehensive …
Savings from ‘Tort Reform’ are Mythical – LA Times
Tort reform is the rallying cry of politicians to combat what they see as “frivolous lawsuits.” The have convinced a large portion of the public that insurance companies deserve better protections than everyday people. The Governor of Illinois has made …
Red Cross Safety Tips For The 4th of July Holiday
It’s time for Fourth of July celebrations – fireworks, a backyard barbecue, maybe a trip to the beach. Whatever people have planned, the American Red Cross wants them to enjoy their holiday and has steps they can follow to be …
PCBs & Chemical Safety: Chemical Safety Bill Could Help Protect Monsanto Against Legal Claims
Yesterday a jury in St. Louis, MO awarded $17.5 million in damages to three plaintiffs and assessed $29 million more in punitive damages against Monsanto and three other companies in a suit here alleging negligence in the production of PCBs. …
Medical Malpractice: The 1% of Doctors
The New England Journal of Medicine has analyzed data that 1% of physicians account for approximately 32% of paid medical malpractice claims. The data – which was pulled from the National Practitioner Data Bank – shows that over a recent 10-year period, a small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid malpractice claims.
A study of 70,000 malpractice claims against approximately 55,000 doctors from 2005 through 2014, the Journal analyzed data with the hope of understanding the distribution of malpractice claims among physicians.
Among all of the physicians with paid claims, 84% incurred only one malpractice claim during the study period, which accounted for 68% of all paid claims. Of the remaining physicians, 16% had at least two paid claims during the relevant time frame, accounting for 32% of the claims.The last 4% of doctors had at least three paid claims (if not more), accounting for 12% of the claims.
Physicians who had three paid medical malpractice claims have three times the risk of incurring another paid medical malpractice claim in the future. Practitioner speciality also plays a role: the risk of malpractice among neurosurgeons, for example, was four times as great as the risk among psychiatrists.
The Journal’s conclusion boils down to this startling fact: “A small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid [medical] malpractice claims.”
Avoidable Medical Errors: The Third Leading Cause of Death in America
The Center for Justice & Democracy reports that according to the report, published in the Journal of Patient Safety, ‘between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death,’ the study says. Only heart disease and cancer cause more deaths in America than avoidable medical errors.
Source: Marshall Allen, “How Many Die From Medical Mistakes in U.S. Hospitals?” ProPublica, September 19, 2013, cited in CJ&D’s Briefing Book: Medical Malpractice – By The Numbers (p. 77)
Source: Spotlight: Avoidable Medical Errors Are the Third Leading Cause of Death in America | centerjd.org