The Medical Malpractice “Crisis:” Separating Myth From Reality V

V. Medical errors cost the system far more than malpractice claims.

•  According to a 2006 federal study, medication errors are out of control in the United States. “Medication errors are surprisingly common and costly to the nation… When all types of errors are taken into account, a hospital patient can expect on average to be subjected to more than one medication error each day… There are at least 1.5 million preventable [medication errors] that occur in the United States each year. The true number may be much higher.” Preventing Medication Errors, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (2006).
• According to a 2006 study by Rand Health, the nation's largest independent health-policy research organization, only 55% of Americans receive proper medical care as measured against objective indicators of quality of care. “Who Is At Greatest Risk For Receiving Poor-Quality Healthcare?” New England Journal of Medicine, March 16, 2006
• An analysis of 184,500 medical malpractice payments from 1991 to 2003 from data provided by the federal government found that malpractice payments, when adjusted for medical inflation (which typically has been about 4% per year) have remained flat over that 12-year period. “The Growth of Physician Medical Malpractice Payments,” Health
• Affairs, June 1, 2005.
• “If you eliminated malpractice premiums [completely], the total cost of health care would fall by about 1%. It is silly to talk about malpractice premiums affecting the cost of healthcare” J. Angoff, former Insurance Commissioner, State of Missouri.
• An unprecedented study of Pennsylvania patients found that in 2004, 11,000 patients in the state acquired infections during their hospital stay and that 1,500 of them died as a result of those infections. Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, July 2005. The publishers of the study indicated that the statistics may actually be under- reported, and that they only reflect the “tip of the iceberg” on the problem of hospital-acquired infections.
•  “Medical malpractice costs make up only a tiny fraction of total healthcare costs. According to a study by the Consumer Federation of America, medical malpractice costs, as a percentage of healthcare costs, are at an all-time low of 0.55%.

• Far more costly than malpractice lawsuits are the costs of medical errors. Total national costs of negligence in hospitals are already estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion each year.” CJD study at p. 14.
• The groundbreaking study by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine “To Err is Human,” Academy Press 1999, found that preventable medical errors were at least the eighth leading cause of death in America, and perhaps the third leading cause!

“More people die in a given year as a result of medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.

Yet silence surrounds this issue. For the most part, consumes believe they are protected. Media coverage has been limited to reporting of anecdotal cases… Licensing and accreditation processes have focused only limited attention on the issue, and even these minimal efforts have confronted some resistance from health care organizations and providers.

The status quo is not acceptable and cannot be tolerated any longer.

Healthcare is a decade or more behind other high-risk industries in its attention to insuring basic safety.” See Executive Summary, “To Err is Human."

• According to a study released in October 2003 by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, medical complications, often preventable ones, added significant cost to the health care system in Pennsylvania last year. According to the Council infections and other complications which were often preventable, added over $560 million dollars in health care cost and caused over 16,000 patients to be re-admitted to the hospital.

• “Some so-called defensive medicine may be motivated less by liability concerns than by the income it generates for physicians or by the positive (albeit small) benefits to patients. On the basis of existing studies and its own research, CBO believes that savings from reducing defensive medicine would be very small.” Congressional Budget Office, “Limiting Tort Liability for Malpractice,” January 8, 2004.