Background/Purpose:  Medicine is an increasingly more litigious environment, and the probability of a practitioner facing a medical malpractice claim is high. Given the tumultuous liability insurance climate, and a shift in the public attention towards curbing the practice of defensive medicine, an understanding of medical malpractice claims is prudent. To the authors’ best knowledge, no studies have provided an analysis of malpractice litigation in the subspecialty of rheumatology. This study delineates the medico-legal factors that compel plaintiffs to file medical malpractice claims related to the management of rheumatic diseases.

Methods: The online legal database, WestLaw, was searched to delineate all medical malpractice cases related to rheumatology across a 31-year period from 1985-2015. All state and federal jury verdicts and settlements relevant to the search criteria were considered.

Results:  A total of 30 rheumatic disease malpractice cases were evaluated in this 31-year period. Ten cases were excluded from the analysis due to duplicity or lack of relevance to rheumatology. The average age of the patient was 51.9 years, and 45 percent were female. The cases were distributed across 10 states. The jury found in favor of the plaintiff in 20 percent of cases with a mean payout of $2,776,364, and in favor of the defendant in 60 percent of the cases. A failure to diagnose and/or a failure to treat in a timely manner were the two most commonly alleged causes of malpractice. Settlements were reached in 15 percent of the cases with most payouts undisclosed. Rheumatologists accounted for 33.3 percent of all named defendants.

Conclusion:  In the case of rheumatic disease, a majority of the verdicts were in favor of the defendant, and settlements were reached in the minority of cases. When the verdict favored the plaintiff, mean payouts were substantial at over $2 million. Rheumatologists accounted for a small percentage of all co-defendants.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/an-analysis-of-malpractice-litigation-in-rheumatology/