On average, physicians spend nearly 11 percent of their 40-year careers with an open, unresolved malpractice claim

Abstract

The US malpractice system is widely regarded as inefficient, in part because of the time required to resolve malpractice cases. Analyzing data from 40,916 physicians covered by a nationwide insurer, we found that the average physician spends 50.7 months-or almost 11 percent-of an assumed forty-year career with an unresolved, open malpractice claim. Although damages are a factor in how doctors perceive medical malpractice, even more distressing for the doctor and the patient may be the amount of time these claims take to be adjudicated. We conclude that this fact makes it important to assess malpractice reforms by how well they are able to reduce the time of malpractice litigation without undermining the needs of the affected patient.

Figure 1:

Time to resolution of malpractice claims according to severity of alleged patient injury

Figure 2:

Estimated proportion of a physician’s career spent with an outstanding malpractice claim according to physician specialty Notes: The proportion of a physician’s career spent with an open malpractice claim was computed by first estimating a multivariate regression of the number of days in a year with an open claim as a function of physician age and specialty. We next predicted the number of days with an open claim as a function of physician age and specialty and then summed the predicted time with a claim across all ages. This resulted in the expected number of months during a physician’s career spent with an open claim, according to specialty.