(A condensation of an article appearing in the 11/6/06 issue of National Underwriter.)
Medical malpractice claims have stabilized for the first time in many years, according to the 7th Annual Aon Hospital Professional Liability Benchmark Analysis. The study measured 47,735 claims representing more than $4.4 billion of incurred losses from 1997 through 2005. According to the study, the overall frequency of med-mal claims has remained stable for the past two years, but the average size continues to rise.
Statistics show that the average size of med-mal claims continues to increase at a 6% annual rate, with the average amount paid to indemnify claimants increasing at a rate of 3%. The amount paid to defend claims, however, is growing at a rate of 17%.
Review of the study's results indicate that the impact of legislative reforms at the state level is being realized. Reforms include caps on pain and suffering damages and restrictions on "jurisdiction shopping". On a national level, emphasis is now being directed towards patient safety and error elimination, which may be critical for sustaining a favorable frequency trend into the future.
While patient safety initiatives may vary greatly from state to state, there has been some effort to standardize them to better measure results. In December 2004, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement began the 100,000 Lives Campaign in which participating hospitals pledged to implement six quality improvements with a goal of preventing 100,000 avoidable deaths. Note that there is a statistically significant relationship between mortality and claims frequency in certain segments of the study's database. Hospitals with fewer deaths tend to have fewer hospital professional liability indemnity claims.
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