According to an analysis of U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources data, Oklahoma ranks first in medical negligence per capita. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports approximately 2% of patients suffering from medical negligence file claims for compensation.
What is Medical Negligence?
Patients should expect to receive medical treatment from knowledgeable and capable physicians. Doctors owe certain duties to their patients. These responsibilities include obtaining informed consent before administering any treatment and performing to accepted standards of care. Medical negligence is the breach of any of these physicians’ duties.
Examples of medical negligence include:
- Dispensing incorrect drugs or dosage.
- Failing to diagnose a health condition accurately.
- Failing to diagnose a health condition entirely.
- Not reviewing a patient’s current medications.
- Not warning a patient of known risks of a surgery or procedure.
- Ignoring laboratory results.
- Making a severe mistake during surgery that causes additional injuries.
Is medical negligence the same as medical malpractice?
When a medical provider’s actions or inactions fail to meet the medical standard of care, their behavior constitutes medical negligence. If their medical negligence causes their patient to suffer an injury, it becomes medical malpractice. A healthcare provider must provide care that meets the standards of practice. The injured patient can file a medical malpractice claim when they do not. A successful claim can see the patient awarded financial damages.
Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Statistics
The Weiss & Paarz study is a 30-year overview of medical malpractice suits across the United States. They found that Oklahoma ranks first nationally with the most medical malpractice lawsuits per capita. However, in overall lawsuits, the state ranks lower at 15th place. In 30 years, Oklahoma has been the home to 30,792 cases.
The top 5 states with the most medical malpractice lawsuits over the past 30 years are:
- California: 141,192
- Texas: 123,455
- New York: 90,351
- Florida: 85,767
- Pennsylvania: 68,388
The five states with the fewest medical malpractice suits filed between 1990 and 2020 are:
- Hawaii: 2,488
- South Dakota: 3,081
- Washington, D.C: 3,136
- Wyoming: 3,295
- North Dakota: 3,801
The states with the largest medical malpractice compensation awards over the same period are:
- New York: $27.2 billion
- Pennsylvania: $14.2 billion
- Florida: $11.2 billion
- California: $10.3 billion
- Illinois: $10 billion
Oklahoma ranks as #25 with $1.5 billion. North Dakota has the lowest total, with $193 million. The national average medical malpractice award between 1990 and 2020 was $101,716. In Oklahoma, it was $47,227. In 2019 specifically, the national average award dropped to $75,380 but increased in Oklahoma to $61,543.
The Costs of Medical Negligence
Expenses to litigate a single medical malpractice case can total between $50,000 and $100,000. With the average malpractice award being just over $100,000 per lawsuit, not many lawyers will take on such legal action. If a lawsuit goes forward, hiring an expert to review the case and lend professional opinions is another significant expense. In Oklahoma, experts typically must be brought in from out of state because many doctors are insured by the same company and will not testify against one another.
Prosecuting physicians is difficult because they are held to a higher standard than others. Jurors might accept that things can go wrong during treatment, even with the best doctor giving their all. Injured patients might consider this and forgo pursuing legal proceedings.
Medical negligence also costs patients their health, earning ability, and lives. One of the best ways to mitigate these costs is for healthcare providers to be adequately credentialed before hiring and while employed.
Ideally, providers everywhere should give all their patients the best care possible. However, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, 75% of low-risk and 99% of providers in high-risk specialties will face a medical malpractice claim by age 65. Proper medical malpractice insurance can be a valuable tool to help protect a provider and relieve the patient should a provider ever face a claim.
More information about Fifth Avenue Agency
Fifth Avenue Agency specializes in MPLI and medical malpractice insurance, serving 1000s of providers nationwide. Fifth Avenue Agency is part of the Fifth Avenue Healthcare Services family. Sister companies include 5ACVO (credentialing and primary source verification specialists) and Primoris Credentialing Network (credentialing and provider enrollment specialists with 54+ health plan and network provider enrollment options).
For more information on Fifth Avenue Agency, please visit FifthAvenueAgency.com or Contact Us.
