Posted by John Ager on 21 December 2012.
Believe it or not, very few medical malpractice lawsuits are being filed in Arizona. That may come as a bit of a surprise since we have been conditioned to believe that medical malpractice litigation is solely responsible for physicians leaving the state, skyrocketing health insurance costs, and out of control malpractice insurance premiums. Let’s take a closer look.
Maricopa county has a population of about 4,000,000 people. There are about 350 office visits just to physicians for every 100 people each year. Counting emergency department visits, elective surgical procedures and other health care-related activities, there are well over 500 health care provider contacts per 100 residents annually. That does not include the multiple contacts a person may have with a variety of different health care providers at an emergency department or hospital for example. The charts at this CDC website http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/docvisit.htm breaks it down into more detail. Even using a conservative number of 500 health care provider contacts per 100 residents, there are at least 20 million opportunities for patients to be harmed by medical malpractice annually.
Yet, there were only about 325 medical malpractice lawsuits filed in Maricopa County in 2011. That’s right. Out of the thousands of health care providers in Maricopa County – doctors, nurses, chiropractors, physical therapists etc. – and the millions of patient contacts, only 325 lawsuits. Moreover, the number of cases filed each year has been fairly steady for several years.
So, does this mean that malpractice is not really a problem? Hardly. All of the research indicates that millions are harmed and die each year because of medical malpractice in the United States alone. My partner and I have written a lot about the difficulties of helping the victims of medical malpractice. The number of lawsuits is low because the cases are extremely difficult, and very expensive, to prosecute. Jury’s find for the defense 93% of the time. Recognizing malpractice and proving it in a legal context are two completely different things.
Cases also rarely settle before a lawsuit is filed. This means that 325 is likely pretty close to the actual number of lawsuits that would have been filed, but for early settlements. Are “frivolous lawsuits” really a problem. I don’t think so. The problem is that meritorious lawsuits are so difficult that justice for medical malpractice victims is hardly ever served.