I was actually surprised by these statistics – I expected Emergency Medicine to be higher. After all, we’re meeting people with potentially unrealistic expectations, suffering long wait times, without continuity of care, and potential bad outcomes lurking everywhere.
But, really, our claims against and claims with payout are really pretty much average across specialties. Neurosurgery and Thoracic Surgery are the nightmare specialties, where nearly a 5th of physicians practicing in those specialties has a claim filed against them each year. Another interesting statistic was that Gynecology, only a little above average in claims filed against, has the highest percentage of payouts.
Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Internal Medicine lead the way in median payout, but Pediatrics, Pathology, and Ob/Gyn lead the way in mean payout – apparently skewed by the occasional massive award.
Given the legislation pending in many states these days giving additional protections to Emergency Physicians and physicians on-call to Emergency Departments, it’s really not a bad time to be in EM, from a liability standpoint.
“Malpratice Risk According to Physician Specialty”
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21848463