Prevalence and characteristics of physicians prone to malpractice claims (28 January 2016)

Summary

The distribution of malpractice claims among physicians is not well understood. If claim-prone physicians account for a substantial share of all claims, the ability to reliably identify them at an early stage could guide efforts to improve care.

Using data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, Studdert et al. analysed 66,426 claims paid against 54,099 physicians from 2005 through 2014. The authors calculated concentrations of claims among physicians.

They found over a 10-year period, a small number of physicians with distinctive characteristics accounted for a disproportionately large number of paid malpractice claims.