Alarming Med Mal Statistics

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) December 21, 2009 -- No one wants to be a medical malpractice statistic, and yet medical errors have been documented to occur frequently. For instance, medical malpractice stats reveal that less than half of 1% of American doctors nationwide actually face any sanctions in a year. This isn’t to say that there aren’t complaints filed, because there are 2,500 of them on average yearly that may end up with serious disciplinary action being taken. Disciplinary action is not the same thing as sanctions.

While medical errors are seemingly rather common, are they anything to be worried about? It appears the answer to that question may be in the affirmative. Thanks to a recent Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences study, it was projected that close to 98,000 patients may die every year in hospitals because of medical errors.

In yet another interesting study released by Harvard, they revealed that roughly 1% of the patients treated in the state of New York were injured due to medical errors and 25% of those injured died due to medical negligence. If those figures are extrapolated and calculated on the basis of all the states, this would work out to 80,000 deaths and 234,000 injuries.

Following in the footsteps of New York, California did a study of their own and also included the number of patients put into hospital due to negligent medical care. Overall, in that state, roughly 1% of hospital patients had been harmed by hospital negligence or been admitted to hospital for negligent care. Again, spread those figures out to do a nationwide calculation and the figures would then show roughly 249,000 injuries and deaths attributable to medical malpractice in a year. Needless to say, these figures are rather eye-opening.

Most of the figures in the studies covered here dealt with in hospital errors and specialized care by surgeons, etc. Another component of several studies included figures for medical malpractice in the General Practitioner population. It turns out that 47% of doctors surveyed remembered a case where the patient died due to doctor error.

Based on the figures relating to med mal, both per state and nationwide, it’s highly reasonable to estimate that close to 1% of all U.S. doctors in practice should be up for serious disciplinary action every year. Overall, that would mean about 7,703 doctors read the riot act on the mat. Unfortunately, that number is much higher than the numbers of physicians that are actually disciplined to any extent.

Of note is the fact that only one malpractice claim is actually filed for every eight cases. Plaintiffs are known to drop at least 10 times more claims than they will actively pursue. Much of this has to do with factors such as waiting too long to file, inability to obtain the proper medical records, or the death of the plaintiff. Speaking to a competent med mal attorney will give a patient or their family some guidance in terms of whether or not to pursue a med mal claim.