Premium
Malpractice claims closed against hospital defendants in Florida: 1986–1993
Author(s) -
Studnicki James,
Campbell Robert R.,
Werner Dennis C.,
Remmel Randall
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of healthcare risk management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 2040-0861
pISSN - 1074-4797
DOI - 10.1002/jhrm.5600160303
Subject(s) - payment , malpractice , actuarial science , medical malpractice , descriptive statistics , inflation (cosmology) , medicine , demography , business , law , finance , statistics , political science , mathematics , sociology , physics , theoretical physics
Objective — To provide a statewide trend analysis of all hospital malpractice claims, payment amounts, and their distribution by location of the event within hospitals. Design — A retrospective, descriptive study of 7,819 hospital claims closed in the state of Florida during the period 1986 to 1993. Results — Both total claims closed (1,756) and paid (655) peaked in 1987 and declined to lows of 507 and 338, respectively, in 1993. The percentage of claims receiving a payment, however, increased steadily from a low of just under 35 percent in 1988 to nearly 67 percent in 1993. More than $537 million has been paid for 3,409 claims. The average payment amount increased an inflation‐adjusted 71 percent, from $94,000 to $212,000. Claims resulting in awards of $1 million or more represented only 3.6 percent of paid claims, but accounted for 52 percent of the total dollars awarded.