http:\/\/www.citizen.org\/pressroom\/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3954<\/a><\/p>\r\nIn the report, \u201cNo Correlation: Continued Decrease in Medical Malpractice Payments Debunks Theory That Litigation Is to Blame for Soaring Medical Costs,\u201d Public Citizen analyzed data from the federal government\u2019s National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), which has tracked malpractice payments since the fall of 1990.<\/p>\r\n
“We now have a decade\u2019s worth of data debunking the litigation canard,\u201d Taylor Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen\u2019s Congress Watch division and the report\u2019s author, said in a statement. \u201cPolicymakers need to focus on reducing medical errors, not reducing accountability for medical errors.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
The report found that in 2012:<\/p>\r\n
– The number of malpractice payments on behalf of doctors (9,379) was the lowest on record, falling for the ninth consecutive year;<\/p>\r\n
– The value of payments made on behalf of doctors ($3.1 billion) was the lowest on record if adjusted for inflation. In unadjusted dollars, payments fell for the ninth straight year and were at their lowest level since 1998;<\/p>\r\n
– More than four-fifths of medical malpractice awards compensated for death, catastrophic harm or serious permanent injuries \u2013 countering the claim that medical malpractice litigation is \u201cfrivolous\u201d;<\/p>\r\n
– Medical malpractice payments\u2019 share of the nation\u2019s health care bill was the lowest on record, falling to about one-tenth of 1 percent (0.11 percent) of national health care costs;<\/p>\r\n
– Medical liability insurance premiums, a broad measure that takes into account defense litigation costs and other factors as well as actual payments, fell to 0.36 of 1 percent of health care costs, the lowest level in the past decade.<\/p>\r\n
The facts surrounding the prevalence of medical malpractice litigation are important for several reasons, the report contends. Medical malpractice has been singled out by many in Congress as the culprit for rising health care costs.<\/p>\r\n
For instance, during the health care reform debate, then-House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio,) called medical malpractice the \u201cbiggest cost driver\u201d in medicine. Republicans in Congress have continuously lobbied to pass legislation that would restrict patients\u2019 ability to seek redress in court.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cThe facts clearly and obviously refute the contentions put forth by Boehner and others that malpractice litigation significantly influences health care costs,” Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen\u2019s Congress Watch division, said in a statement. “Medical malpractice payments continue to fall and health care costs continue to rise. It doesn\u2019t take a math whiz to determine that they are not correlated.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
The new report finds that since 2003, medical malpractice payments have fallen 28.8 percent, yet national health care costs are up 58.2 percent. If health care costs paralleled litigation trends during the past decade, the nation\u2019s health care bill in 2012 would have been $1.3 trillion. Instead, it was $2.8 trillion, according to Public Citizen.<\/p>\r\n
The reduction in litigation is most likely due to state laws that have reduced patients\u2019 legal rights rather than it is to improvements in medical care, the report said. Studies in recent years have found that between 1-in-4 and 1-in-7 hospital patients suffer adverse events, which are defined as undesirable and unanticipated developments that cause death or serious injury.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maybe this new report will end all the hooting and hollering in D.C. about medical malpractice driving up the cost of health care. But somehow I doubt it. Medical malpractice payments made on behalf of doctors were at their lowest level on record in 2012, according to a report just released by Public Citizen, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,478,675],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-medical-malpractice","tag-public-citizen","tag-rising-health-care-costs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1246,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions\/1246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}