Medical Malpractice Payments Fall to All-time Low
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The watchdog group Public Citizen has reported that medical malpractice payments continued to fall across the country last year and only account for a minuscule portion of health-care costs. According to data from the federal government’s national Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), the number of payouts declined for the third straight year.
The cost of the malpractice liability system fell to less than 0.6% of the $2.1 trillion in total national health-care costs in 2006, and the cost of actual malpractice payments fell to less than 1/5th of 1% of all health care costs.
Medical malpractice payments have fallen to an all-time low, while the cost of health care continues to rise. Public Citizen’s whole report can be found here.
This report does not actually mean that safety efforts have been successful. It states that:
“There is no evidence that medical errors have declined. Rather than pointing to safer medical care, the reduction almost certainly means that there are ever more malpractice victims not receiving compensation.”
In addition, Public Citizen doubts that national tort reform will have an impact on health care costs.
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Division said,
“Any way you measure it, medical liability accounts for less than 1% of the country's health-care costs, and the vast majority of victims receive no compensation whatsoever.”