A Harvard study on the hotly-debated issue of capping lawsuits, found that about 40% of medical malpractice cases filed in the United States of America (U.S.A.) are groundless. The great majority of these dubious medical malpractice cases were dismissed, with no payout to the patient. However, groundless lawsuits still accounted for 15% of money paid out on settlement or verdicts. These findings were published in May issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Altogether, the Harvard researcher reviewed 1452 malpractice claims randomly selected from insurance companies. The study also confirmed that defending a claim is expensive and long, taking an average of 5 years to resolve. It also found that 50% of every dealer to patients had to cover lawyer’s fees and other expenses. This therefore makes medical malpractice the eighth leading cause of death among Americans, more deadly than motor vehicle accidents (43,458 deaths per year), breast cancer (42,297 deaths per year) or AIDS (16,516 deaths per year).
Tags: medical malpractice attorney, medical malpractice cases, medicine, Harvard School of Public Health
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