California: Malpractice Payment of $995,000 for Injury to a Female Patient in her 30s (2019)

In 2019, a medical malpractice insurance company made a payment on behalf of a nurse midwife in California for approximately* $995,000. Payment was made in response to a claim of medical malpractice claim involving an injury along the lines of quadriplegia, brain damage, or the need for lifelong care suffered by a female patient between 30 and 40 years old. The nature of the claim is broadly described as: "medication related." The payment report submitted by a medical malpractice payer described the allegations in the claim as "Failure to Order Appropriate Medication."

* The payment amount is approximate because the National Practitioner Data Bank codes payments as a range value. The report's description of $995,000 corresponds to a malpractice payment somewhere between $990,001 and $1,000,000.

Claim at a Glance

Year of Payment: 2019

Location: California

Allegation: Failure to Order Appropriate Medication

Act or Omission: 2011

Payment Range: Between $990,001 and $1,000,000

Nature of Claim: Medication Related

Payer: Insurance Company

Type of Care: Both Inpatient and Outpatient Care

Reporter: A Medical Malpractice Payer

Claim Insights

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. When reviewing this information, you should consider whether the patient would have described his or her injury as “minor” or “temporary” or “emotional only.” Further, there are important aspects of any claim valuation that simply cannot work in a database. Flagrant negligence might be coded the same way as what could be described as a smaller error, and one would have no way of knowing from these data. But even with these limitations and even where some required information is missing from any particular report, each of the payment reports in the database have enough to provide some insightful information that can help evaluate medical malpractice claims going forward.

Provider History Includes a Licensure Report

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.

In addition to this particular malpractice payment, this provider has two other types of reports on record that are worth noting. First, this provider has a total of three malpractice payments in the database. To put this number in perspective, throughout over 200,000 payment records, approximately 55% of them are associated with providers with multiple payments. This provider's total of three malpractice payments is more than 82% of all providers in the database, which is limited to providers with malpractice payment history.

Second, the database reflects that this particular provider has a licensure report on record. These are more unusual among the providers for whom malpractice payments are recorded in the database - only about 15% of the providers with malpractice payments also have at least one licensure report as well.

Provider Detail

Alerts 4

California

Nurse Midwife

Age: Between 40 and 50 Years Old in 2011 When Allegations Arose

Education Completed: Between 1990 and 2000

Malpractice Payments 3
There are other payments in the database associated with this provider:
YearStateAmountAllegation
2014California$77,500Failure to Perform Procedure
2014California$145,000Failure to Perform Procedure
2019California$995,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
Licensure Reports 1
Adverse actions by the state licensing board are reported to the NPDB. Some of these actions are public, but some are not. All adverse actions must be reported in this database, whether or not they are public.
Payments

Similar Claims

Here are other claims involving an allegation of Failure to Order Appropriate Medication and an outcome of an injury along the lines of quadriplegia, brain damage, or the need for lifelong care suffered by a patient between 30 and 40 years old.
YearStateAmountAllegation
2024Pennsylvania$495,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2023Pennsylvania$995,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2019California$995,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2019New York$2,250,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2019New York$2,250,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2018Florida$1,250,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2016New York$8,050,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2016California$27,500Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2016California$27,500Failure to Order Appropriate Medication
2015Illinois$245,000Failure to Order Appropriate Medication