Malpractice Highest in Internal and Family Medicine? Is this true?

[Blitz2006]

http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/malpractice-report/public#3

So Just doing some light reading on Medscape, and came across this slide. I am a bit surprised that these specialities are #1 and #2 for being sued the most (percentage wise).

Is this true? I always thought OB/GYN and Emergency and Plastics would be miles ahead.....

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[gutonc]

As with all surveys, this is self reported data so take it with a very large grain of salt.

Also, some of the aesthetic plastics folks have waivers they make patients sign saying that they won't sue for cosmetic outcomes they don't like which will definitely decrease those numbers.

 

[Blitz2006]

yeah I am aware that medscape surveys are not the most accurate. .

but still surprised at the results. was not expecting primary care to be leading this pack...

 

[shiftingmirage]

Based in the flowing document, there are approximately 798k active physicians in the US. 109k are IM, 107k are FM, which is 14% and 13%, respectively, of all practicing physicians. So it is not a surprise that they represent a similar percent of malpractice litigation (15% and 13%, respectively).

There are 40k active OB/GYN making 5% of the working pool, yet they make 9% of litigation, almost double.

EM makes up 4% of active physicians, and 4% of litigation.

So it's not a surprise that the two specialties with the highest number of active physicians have the top two spots in terms of percent of medical litigation.

https://www.aamc.org/download/313228/data/2012physicianspecialtydatabook.pdf

 

[Kahreek]

I've heard that ob and em have the greatest numbers relatively speaking.

 

[Blitz2006]

Great link. Yeah I realize that in terms of sheer numbers primary care is tops, But just didn't expect the percentage to be that high.

So based on your link, 38K psychiatrists and 8% litigation?!

I had no idea psych malpractice is as high as OBGYN!

What's the reason for this?

Based in the flowing document, there are approximately 798k active physicians in the US. 109k are IM, 107k are FM, which is 14% and 13%, respectively, of all practicing physicians. So it is not a surprise that they represent a similar percent of malpractice litigation (15% and 13%, respectively).

There are 40k active OB/GYN making 5% of the working pool, yet they make 9% of litigation, almost double.

EM makes up 4% of active physicians, and 4% of litigation.

So it's not a surprise that the two specialties with the highest number of active physicians have the top two spots in terms of percent of medical litigation.

https://www.aamc.org/download/313228/data/2012physicianspecialtydatabook.pdf

 

[gutonc]

Please note that the question was "have you ever been sued?" not "have you ever had a malpractice claim decided against you in court?". Those are two very different things. The first means "I have a lot of patients on my panel and most of them are bats**t crazy" while the latter means "I (maybe) did a bad thing medically and had to pay for it".

 

[Raryn]

IM and FM have the lowest malpractice premiums.

The highest are Ob and Neurosurgery. The average neurosurgeon gets sued every 2-3 years.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

Raryn beat me to it. OB & neurosurgery are the highest. Plastics is relatively low.