JACR: Malpractice suits for RTs remain infrequent
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On average, there are less than nine malpractice payments against RTs each year in the U.S., with almost half of these lawsuits less than $50,000, wrote Richard Duszak, Jr., MD, of Mid-South Imaging and Therapeutics and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, and colleagues who sought to describe characteristics and trends of RT malpractice payments.
The researchers leveraged National Practitioner Data Bank data files to obtain information regarding RT malpractice payments from Jan. 1, 1991 through Dec. 31, 2008. In addition to geographic and demographic data, payment amounts, sources and allegations and the cases’ designation as a settlement or judgment were identified and summarized.
In all, 155 adverse reports were filed and Duszak and his colleagues included reports coded for RTs, nuclear medicine technologists, radiation therapy technologists and x-ray technicians or operators.
Of the 155 identified cases, 85 percent of the defendants were RTs, 9 percent were nuclear medicine technologists, 5 percent were radiation therapy technologists, with no cases designated as x-ray technicians or operators. At the time of the alleged events, 81 percent of technologists were between 30 and 59 years old, the authors wrote.
The researchers determined that of the 155 RT malpractice payments between 1991 and 2008, total payments ranged from $750 to $11.5 million, with an average payment of $57,500. Ninety-nine percent of the payments were under $1 million and more than half of the cases originated in eight states, with per capita payments most common in Louisiana and New Jersey.
Alleged diagnosis error accounted for one-third of all cases. After adjusting for outliers and inflation, the authors found that malpractice payments remained stable over the 18-year study period for RTs, with regard to both frequency and amounts.
Duszak attributed the modest change over the past two decades to “financial shielding by deep-pocket hospitals and radiologists,” noting that although an RT may be the individual against whom negligent conduct is alleged in a medical malpractice lawsuit, the aggrieved plaintiff-patient will often look to other codefendants or the employer to provide funds to satisfy a settlement or jury verdict.
“Because an RT is less likely to have sufficient personal assets or professional liability insurance to compensate a patient aggrieved from the technologist's negligence, plaintiffs' attorneys often formulate their allegations of wrongdoing so that the employer becomes the sole, or at least primary, defendant,” explained Duszak.
The authors acknowledged limitations to their research, citing that dismissed or dropped lawsuits and verdicts in favor of healthcare providers do not result in payments and are not reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank.
However, Duszak concluded: “These cases, nonetheless, are still expensive to defend, and potentially bear even higher emotional costs on defendant technologists and technologists.”