Malpractice Articles - Medical Practice Trends

Which Doctors Are Most At Risk For Malpractice Lawsuits?

August 12, 2010 By Peter Polack 1 Comment

According to a report by Fierce Healthcare, a survey from the American Medical Association found that 95 out of every 100 physicians will be sued for malpractice sometime in their career.

In addition, their 2007-2008 survey of almost 6,000 physicians across 42 specialties found that:

About 2/3 of doctors aged 55 and older have been sued
Male physicians were twice as likely to be sued as female physicians
General surgeons and OB/GYNs had five times the risk as pediatricians
Doctors in solo or single-specialty groups had a higher risk than those in a multi-specialty group

They also noted that physicians prevailed 90% of the time that cases went to trial, although these cases can still average $100,000 in defense costs. And even the 65% of cases that are dropped or dismissed can cost over $20,00o to defend.

Using EMR Reduces Your Risk of a Malpractice Claim

August 10, 2010 By Peter Polack 4 Comments

According to a study from Harvard University, physicians who use electronic medical records systems may be less likely to be sued.

“When providers use electronic records in the outpatient setting, the likelihood of a paid malpractice settlement was about two-thirds as high,” said one of the lead authors, David Westfall Bates, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, MA, and professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The study group says their findings “support the hypothesis that EHR adoption and use lead to improved quality of care and patient safety, resulting in fewer adverse events and fewer paid malpractice claims. ” In addition, EHRs may result in more extensive and more legible documentation leading to stronger legal defenses when malpractices lawsuits are filed.

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What is the Most Important Insurance a Physician Can Carry?

January 17, 2008 By Peter Polack Leave a Comment

Protect your income with this invaluable tool

Get familiar with the different types of insurance. Malpractice, umbrella, homeowners, auto, overhead, key man – it is sometimes dizzying what the number of different insurance policies a typical physician must contend with. One that is often overlooked by many physicians, particularly solo practitioners, is disability insurance.

When I first started my residency, I was married and had a young child. An insurance broker came to give the residents a talk on the importance of disability insurance. Obviously a doctor with a family needs life insurance, but few of us at the time even knew what disability insurance was. And what about elimination periods and own-occupation (known as “own-occ”) policies?

As with many other types of insurance, the younger you are, the cheaper the policy, and the easier it is to obtain. While at first it may seem to be wasted money, never underestimate the importance of protecting your income – you are more likely to be disabled than to die, and few people would argue against life insurance.

Your specialty has an impact on coverage. Some specialties such as anesthesiology are considered at high-risk for disability claims. For that reason it is practically impossible for some physicians to get own-occupation coverage, which is coverage that kicks in if you are unable to do your specific job (such as surgery) but can still work in a different specialty (general medicine, for example).

Maximize your coverage. It is best to get as much coverage as an individual as is allowed by the insurance company. Obviously most physicians will not get a $20 million policy. But it is important to get the maximum individual coverage prior to getting group coverage, which is generally available within a group practice. You may not be allowed to increase your individual policy once you have the group coverage.

Protect yourself in the short term. Most disability policies require a certain amount of time to pass before they are triggered (elimination period). What happens if you are injured for a few months and your policy’s elimination period is 6 months? That could be a rough few months. Short-term disability policies can be useful to bridge this gap. They kick in with a couple of weeks and run until the standard long-term policy begins. Many group insurance plans include a short-term disability policy and as such are very economical.