Medical liability claim risk varies by time in practice, gender, specialty

For physicians, the risk of being sued by a patient is low in the short term but increases the longer they practice, according to data from the AMA’s Physician Practice Benchmark Surveys.

In 2022, 1.8% of physicians reported being sued in the previous year, which is down from the 2.1% of physicians in 2020 reporting being sued in 2019. While the AMA noted that some of this reduction in occurrences of physicians being sued may be due to “lower exposure to risk due to a decrease in the utilization of services provided during the COVID-19 pandemic,” its data shows that risk of being sued was already trending down pre-pandemic. For example, 2.4% of physicians reported in 2018 that they were sued in 2017 and previous literature states that more physicians were being sued in the past: 7.4% of physicians faced a lawsuit annually between 1991 and 2003.

Despite the lower risk in the short term, physicians are at a higher proportional risk of being sued over the long term, according to 2022 survey respondents: 31.2% reported that they had been sued at some point in their careers.

The AMA also noted that liability risk also varies due to several factors. For example, men are more likely than women to be sued at some point in their careers (36.8% vs. 24%). Specialty can also be a factor, with OB-GYNs, general surgeons, and orthopedic surgeons reporting higher incidences of being sued.

Source: AMA