According to the Daily Mail, medical malpractice is a legal action that claims a doctor or healthcare professional was negligent, failed to perform their primary duties or caused a patient to die or become injured unnecessarily. These may involve missing or late diagnoses, botched operations or dangerous prescription mess-ups.
The Memphis-based law firm Gatti, Keltner, Bienvenu & Montesi PLC (GKBM) was responsible for the report. It compiled the total number of medical malpractice cases in all 50 states from 1990 to 2023, alongside the number of doctors and other healthcare workers in each state. Afterward, GKBM computed the average to calculate how many happened for each practitioner.
The firm found that states in the Northeast were more likely to misdiagnose conditions or fail to treat patients. It also noted that the Empire State took the No. 1 spot with almost 65,000 cases of medical malpractice among 51,500 doctors. Pennsylvania and New Jersey landed in second and third place, respectively.
Dividing the 64,594 medical malpractice payment reports registered in New York since 1990 with the 51,500 practitioners there, the average is 1.25 cases per doctor. The worst year for the Empire State happened in 1992, with 2,562 reports being filed. Despite this, GKBM found a silver lining with medical malpractice rates in New York on a downturn– the 2,505 reports in 2001 declined to 1,162 in 2022.
The Keystone State took the No. 2 spot with one with an average of one malpractice report for its 36,719 practitioners. The numbers were highest in the 1990s and early 2000s, with a stable improvement since 2010. Meanwhile, the Garden State was in third place with two occurrences of medical malpractice for every three doctors – for a total of 30,906.
Alabama the safest state for patients
The GKBM report also found that Alabama was considered the safest U.S. state, averaging just 0.15 reports of medical malpractice per practitioner. The Cotton State also recorded only 2,606 incidents since 1990.
The states of Oregon, Alaska, Arkansas and North Dakota took the second to fifth spots. Colorado, Virginia, Arizona, Minnesota and Vermont completed the lineup of Top 10 safest states.
According to GKBM, the high medical malpractice numbers could partially be attributed to population size. New York has the fourth-highest population at 19.8 million, while Pennsylvania follows at roughly 13 million. Interestingly, California – the most populated state – did not enter the list of Top 10 worst states for medical malpractice.
The firm also noted that population size could have also influenced the safest states. Alabama only has around five million residents, while Oregon follows at 4.2 million.
Malpractice suits are likely a result of misdiagnosis. As reported by law practice Buchanan Firm, 31 percent of doctors are sued on account of failure to diagnose or delayed diagnosis. Failure to treat or delayed treatment comprise 16 percent of cases, and wrongful death makes up 13 percent. (Related: Medical malpractice kills 500 times more Americans than accidental gun deaths… we need DOCTOR control.)
"Interestingly, reports of medical malpractice have fallen decade on decade. Between 2001 and 2010, the average annual total of medical malpractice payment reports sat at 16,182, falling to 11,906 for the subsequent decade," said GKBM managing partner Mike Montesi.
"The East Coast appears to be the most dangerous region for medical patients, with six of the 10 states in the study having a shoreline along the Atlantic Ocean. With reports of under-staffing and strikes for wage increases within the healthcare sector, it will be interesting to monitor incidents of medical malpractice within the coming years for possible spikes or drops."
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Watch this video about medical malpractice having a death rate 500 times higher than gun accidents.
This video is from the NRA channel on Brighteon.com.
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Scott Schara: Medical system didn’t value people’s lives during COVID-19 pandemic – Brighteon.TV.
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