The number of cases should be number of patients where a diagnosis was missed or who suffered negligence where there was harm to the patient.
What percentage of actual cases meet this standard?
If there's no harm AND inappropriate medicine then there should be no case.
Isn't that the current standard for conviction?
Duty to the patient.
Dereliction of that duty which directly leads to damages.
The problem is that you can
try and sue for anything. And with those obnoxious commercials from "Stanley the Douchebag Hammer" promising money. So while there's a large percentage of cases thrown out, and a large percentage of cases decided in favor of the physicians, there are tons more cases settled out of court, and tons of accusations just fishing for money.
The fact is most patients don't have clue if they received good care or not. And good care doesn't matter. Patients sue because they're pissed off about something, whether it's a bad outcome (most likely) or because you weren't nice enough to them when you were busy saving their life.
Trust no one and document well. That's all you can do.
An attorney friend of mine pointed out that people might sue less if their continuing medical costs, either the result of an error or just because of chance, were guaranteed by some entity and they didn't have to worry about expenses. There may be some truth to that, but
every other country who promises universal care has a
much less litigenous population, and their courts are not as easily abused as ours. They actually protect their docs.
