In 2019, a medical malpractice insurance company made a payment on behalf of a physician (MD) in Kansas for approximately* $1,950,000. Payment was made in response to a claim of medical malpractice claim involving what was described as a "major temporary injury" to a male patient between 60 and 70 years old. The nature of the claim is broadly described as: "surgery related." The payment report submitted by a medical malpractice payer described the allegations in the claim as "Improper Performance."
* The payment amount is approximate because the National Practitioner Data Bank codes payments as a range value. The report's description of $1,950,000 corresponds to a malpractice payment somewhere between $1,900,001 and $2,000,000.With respect to any medical malpractice payment, there are three major components of any claim. First, there is the act or omission that gave rise to an injury and whether the provider departed from an accepted standard of practice. Second, there is the nature of the injury itself, which includes several factors like its severity, duration, the impact on the patient’s life, the age and general health of the patient, along with many other elements. Third, there needs to be a causal connection between the negligent act or omission by the provider and the injury itself. Even with a showing of negligence, a medical provider is not legally responsible for an outcome that was not caused by the negligence.
With this in mind, the Data Bank does have some information that can give context to the medical malpractice payments, including the patient’s age, gender, whether it was inpatient or outpatient care, the type of malpractice or medical mistake that was alleged, and the ultimate outcome to the patient.
The information has significant limitations, however, that everyone should keep in mind. For one thing, the information is usually self-reported by the healthcare provider and his or her representatives…
A medical provider's malpractice history can be extremely insightful. A long history of malpractice claims and discipline can certainly affect whether a matter is resolved and for how much. One of the most important goals of the National Practitioner Data Bank is to track providers' disciplinary and malpractice payment history throughout interstate moves or new employment situations.
Because of this, a medical provider with no malpractice history or disciplinary record may be less amenable to any payment on a malpractice claim whatsoever. As of 2020, this particular provider had no other reports for other malpractice payments or other adverse action reports.