If you’re having surgery soon, you won’t want to be in Louisiana
And stay away from Wyoming, Colorado and Oregon, according to a new analysis.
RP Legal Group analyzed more than half a million adverse action reports (AARs) nationwide over the past decade.
AARs are what healthcare institutions or states use to report suspected cases of medical malpractice against doctors, dentists, or any other healthcare providers.
The analysis looked at the number of reports in a state per 100,000 residents and found Louisiana averaged about 29 reports. per 100,000 from 2013 to 2023.
The state was followed by Wyoming, with a rate of 26.2 AARs per 100,000 residents, and Colorado with a rate of 25.6 reports.
Rounding out the top five were Oregon (23 AAR) and Oklahoma (22.5 AAR per 100,000 people).
Between 2013 and 2023, the NPDB recorded approximately 513,270 adverse reports, with payments totaling nearly $43 million.
Medical malpractice can be mistakes made during surgery or procedures, including operating on the wrong part of the body and leaving medical tools and supplies on patients after surgery.
According to the New York Bar Association, negligence occurs “when a doctor, health care professional, hospital, or other health care facility fails to care for someone in accordance with the accepted standards of the medical profession and the person is injured, ill or suffers from a condition or As a result, the disease worsens.”
Complaints may be made by patients themselves or on behalf of patients who have died as a result of suspected negligence.
Malpractice claims have resulted in payments to aggrieved patients and their families totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
In Louisiana, insurance, health care institutions or providers paid about 3,000 payments during the decade.
But despite ranking first, Louisiana has seen an 18 percent decline in AARs filed since 2013.
The report showed that no region of the U.S. is safe from medical malpractice, with the largest errors in states across the country, including the West, Midwest, South and Northeast.
Robert Rikard, of RP Legal Group, said: ‘These figures are incredibly high and indicate an issue within healthcare systems and protocols that needs to be reviewed to prevent poor practice.
“Any form of negligence in the healthcare system should raise alarm bells, especially since there can be a lot of collateral damage.”
At the other end of the scale, Hawaii had the lowest rate of medical malpractice. The state received an average of 62 reports between 2013 and 2023, a rate of just 4.3 reports per 100,000 people.
New York followed, with a rate of 5.5, and Idaho with a rate of 7.4 AAR per 100,000 residents.
Rounding out the five states with the lowest AAR rates are Georgia (7.5 per 100,000) and Connecticut (7.6 per 100,000).
According to the New York Bar Association, negligence occurs “when a doctor, health care professional, hospital, or other health care facility fails to care for someone in accordance with the accepted standards of the medical profession and the person is injured, ill or suffer from a condition or the illness worsens as a result’
One of the largest payments in US history was $261 million. In the ‘Take Care of Maya’ case made famous by Netflix, a Florida jury ordered a hospital to pay compensation to a family accused of abusing her daughter and prohibiting her from seeing her during her treatment for chronic pain.
The lawsuit alleges that the girl, 10, was touched against her will and placed under video surveillance as her symptoms worsened and she was confined to a wheelchair.
Another large payout included a $172 million judgment in New York after it was determined that paramedics gave poor advice to a woman whose daughter was suffering from anaphylactic shock, a severe allergic reaction that causes difficulty breathing, swelling of the throat, increased of the heart rate and can kill you. -threatening.
The delay in treatment caused the girl to suffer severe brain damage and paralysis.
In a medical malpractice childbirth case, a family was awarded $97 million after a doctor delayed a woman’s birth and was forced to resort to using forceps and a vacuum extractor to deliver her child. .
The complications caused the boy to suffer a massive skull fracture, extensive brain hemorrhage and lack of oxygen.
As a result, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and several other brain and developmental disorders. She is now four years old and will continue to need 24-hour care.
While Rikard said it was difficult to identify an exact cause of the medical mishaps, he said errors could be due to inattention or a tendency to rush care, providers’ inexperience or negligence.
He added: “Healthcare professionals and workers should ensure they are thoroughly trained and up to date with developments in the healthcare system to reduce potential malpractice.”
An earlier similar analysis speculated that population size could also have led to more cases in certain states because doctors could be responsible for more patients.
Understaffing and burnout could also be factors.
A 2023 survey by Athenahealth found that more than 90 percent of doctors in the United States reported feeling burned out regularly, while 60 percent said they had considered leaving the profession altogether.