Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/922733
45 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY More Than 50% of Physicians Have Been Sued for Malpractice, Study Finds By Alyssa Rege R oughly half (55 percent) of surveyed physicians said they have been named in a malpractice lawsuit, according to a recent report by Medscape. For the report, titled "Malpractice Report 2017," researchers gathered insights from 4,000 physicians across 25-plus specialties about why they had been sued, what hap- pened during the case and how the malprac- tice lawsuit affected the way they practice medicine. Here are six insights from the report. 1. Of the 55 percent of surveyed physicians who said they had been named in a malprac- tice lawsuit, 48 percent of individuals said other physicians had also been named in the lawsuit. 2. Researchers discovered the top 10 special- ties in which physicians said they had been named in a malpractice lawsuit. e 10 spe- cialties are: • Surgery — 85 percent • OB-GYN and women's health — 85 percent • Otolaryngology — 78 percent • Urology — 77 percent • Orthopedics — 76 percent • Plastic surgery/aesthetic medicine — 73 percent • Radiology — 70 percent • Emergency medicine — 65 percent • Gastroenterology — 62 percent • Anesthesiology — 61 percent 3. Among the physicians who identified as having been sued for malpractice, 49 percent said they've been named in between two to five malpractice suits. 4. Nearly six in 10 physicians (58 percent) said they were surprised by the lawsuit. 5. Respondents identified the top 10 reasons physicians were sued for malpractice. e top five reasons are: • Failure to diagnose/delayed diagnosis — 31 percent • Complications from treatment/surgery — 27 percent • Poor outcome/disease progression — 24 percent • Failure to treat/delayed treatment — 17 per- cent • Wrongful death — 16 percent 6. Among the surveyed physicians who had been sued, 89 percent said the lawsuit was unwarranted, while 6 percent identified as being "unsure." n How Geisinger, Cleveland Clinic, Others Respond to Negative Patient Reviews By Alyssa Rege W hile many healthcare organizations agree pa- tients should be able to voice their concerns, hospitals and health systems have begun look- ing for ways to mitigate the effect of negative provider reviews on various online physician rating platforms such as Yelp or Healthgrades that do not involve seeking lit- igation against the individual commenter, according to STAT News. Experts in the online physician rating business claim nega- tive reviews are largely the result of a more open and trans- parent marketplace, the report states. However, instead of combating negative reviews with litigation, many notable hospitals — including the Cleveland Clinic, Danville, Pa.- based Geisinger Health System, and Brigham and Wom- en's Hospital in Boston — are increasingly posting patient reviews of providers on their respective hospital's websites. Salt Lake City-based University of Utah Hospital was among the first hospitals to begin posting unedited patient com- ments on its website as early as 2012, the report stated. Providers who post physician reviews directly to their websites argue that third-party rating websites only fea- ture a handful of comments; if even a few of them are negative, patients may be more reluctant to select the hospital or physician as their care provider, the report states. By posting reviews directly on their website, hos- pitals aim to put negative provider ratings in context, while simultaneously encouraging physicians to "do [their] job better" so that they don't receive any negative reviews, according to the report. However, some other providers view litigation to be a better alternative. Individual commenters on third-party websites are not shielded from liability and can therefore be sued for their comments. Two freestanding emergen- cy room facilities in Texas did just that and filed a legal petition in October seeking to force Google to reveal the identities of 22 individuals connected to negative com- ments about the providers' services, according to STAT News. Rather than pursue litigation, physicians should instead consider opening the floodgates to all individuals to miti- gate the potential effect of negative reviews — widening the pool of reviews opens the doors for more positive reviews to potentially outnumber the negative ones, according to the report. n