Between 2000 and 2011, health care spending increased by 97 percent, but the value of medical malpractice payments decreased by 12 percent. Research shows that total medical malpractice payments have continued to decrease, that such payments account for a small percentage of health care costs and that most payments are for very serious injuries.

The nonprofit group Public Citizen reviews data on medical malpractice cases each year. In its most recent report, for 2011, the group found that medical malpractice payments on doctors’ behalf had dropped for the eighth consecutive year, and had reached their lowest level since 1991.

In 2013, medical malpractice payments on doctors’ behalf accounted for only 0.12 percent of national health care costs.

According to the National Practitioner Data Bank, 80 percent of 2011 medical malpractice payments compensated victims for serious injuries such as brain damage, quadriplegia, injuries requiring lifelong care and death.

Medical errors are a serious problem with grave consequences. It is estimated that more than 700,000 Medicare patients experience a serious adverse event that is preventable each year. In 80,000 of those cases, the error contributed to the patient’s death. In contrast, only 9,758 medical malpractice payments were made on doctors’ behalf in 2011 — all leading Public Citizen to conclude that most medical malpractice errors do not result in litigation.

Bob Briskman is a Chicago malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

The second most common type of mistake was errors related to treatment, and surgery errors were the third most common. All other types of errors combined, including medication, anesthesia, monitoring, obstetric errors and others, accounted for less than 20 percent of the total.

The study, which was published on the website of BMJ Quality and Safety, discovered over 100,000 payments for errors in diagnosis during the period from 1986 to 2010, out of a total of 350,706 paid claims analyzed. Diagnostic errors accounted for 33.8 percent of the cases involving disability and nearly 40 percent of the cases involving death. The study found more outpatient than inpatient diagnostic errors, but found that inpatient diagnostic mistakes were more likely to be lethal.

According to the researchers, diagnostic errors are a major health problem that all medical professionals, hospitals and insurers should be working together to address. The importance of a proper diagnosis is paramount, as the diagnosis determines the treatment.

Bob Briskman is a Chicago malpractice attorney with Briskman Briskman & Greenberg. To learn more call 1.877.595.4878 or visit http://www.briskmanandbriskman.com/.

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“Overall, diagnostic errors have been underappreciated and under-recognized because they’re difficult to measure and keep track of owing to the frequent gap between the time the error occurs and when it’s detected,” study researcher Dr. David Newman-Toker, an associate professor of neurology at the university’s medical school, said in a statement, according to Huffington Post.

While not as obvious as a surgical error, which ranks as the third most common malpractice claim, diagnostic mistakes have caused the death of or injury to as many as 80,000 to 160,000 Americans in the 24-year time span studied.

“This is a major health problem,” said Newman-Toker. “You can’t get the treatment right if you don’t get the diagnosis right.”

In fact, says Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of surgery and health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the leader of the study, “The real problem is that far too many tests and procedures are being performed in the name of defensive medicine, as physicians fear they could be sued if they don’t order them. … It is not the payouts that are bankrupting the system — it’s the fear of them.”

Makary and fellow researchers’ review of the National Practitioner Data Bank — a database of all malpractice judgments or settlements since 1986 — found that catastrophic claim payouts only amounted to 7.9 percent of the 77,621 malpractice claims paid between 2004 and 2010.

More than 34 percent of those catastrophic claim payouts were due to a doctor’s misdiagnosis, nearly 22 percent were due to a birth injury, and close to 18 percent were due to a surgical error.

A full 37 percent involved a doctor who’d previously been sued for medical malpractice. While this could explain why doctors are ordering unnecessary tests, “[Makary] says his findings argue for more research to determine what interventions might prevent the type of errors that result in catastrophic payouts, with the overall goal of improving patient safety and reducing costs at the same time,” reports redOrbit.com.

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