A new report reveals that healthcare organizations are seeing slightly fewer medical malpractice claims – and those they are seeing aren't any more expensive than in past years.
According to the fifth annual benchmarking report on malpractice claims trends released by Zurich, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based insurer of hospitals and healthcare organizations, claims severity – or the average amount per claim – has stabilized over the past several years. The average annual increase over the past 11 years is 4 percent.
Zurich collected data from 1,600 hospitals in report years 1997 through 2007.
“It’s interesting to note that severity does continue to rise among claims valued under $1 million, which are the claims considered more typical within an institution's loss experience,” said Leo Carroll, head of healthcare-specialty products at Zurich North America Commercial. “While the most severe claims (those valued above $1 million and $5 million) have stabilized overall, the frequency of those large losses has increased slightly.”
Zurich also reports that teaching and children’s hospitals have higher claim severity than acute care community hospitals and outpatient facilities. Non-profit hospitals have the lowest severity, and among non-profits, faith-based institutions have the lowest severity of all.
Carroll also noted that the most severity prone states continue to be New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
“We’re continuing to monitor the impact to claim activity by changes in tort reform, patient safety initiatives and use of technology to improve quality of care,” he said.