One percent of all doctors account for 32 percent of all paid malpractice claims, and the more often a doctor is sued, the more likely he or she will be sued again.
Researchers analyzed 10 years of paid malpractice claims using the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal government database that includes 66,426 claims against 54,099 doctors. The study is in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A doctor who had two paid claims was twice as likely to have another as a doctor who had one, and a doctor who had six or more paid claims was 12 times as likely to have another.
Neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons were about twice as likely to have a paid claim as internists, while pediatricians were 30 percent less likely to have one.
After controlling for the number of years in practice, doctors under 35 were one-third as likely to have a recurrence as older colleagues, and men had a 38 percent higher risk of recurrence than women.
“Ninety-four percent of all doctors have no claims,” said the lead author, David M. Studdert, a professor of law and medicine at Stanford. “But doctors who accumulate multiple claims are a problem, and a threat to the health care system. Identifying these high-risk doctors is a key first step toward doing something about the problem.”