Patients seek medical services from the best physicians and specialists from time to time. Diagnostic centres and radiologists play a critical role in the process of disease detection. Hence, a meaningful and effective treatment process begins with accurate and fast disease detection. Any delay or flaw in this process leads to fatal results.
If patients find the diagnosis process time-consuming and inaccurate, they have every right to file lawsuits against the people and the organizations involved. In recent years, many patients have filed such lawsuits against radiologists, surgeons, physicians, and other professionals in the medical care field.

Here is the latest report of Medscape that analyzed how these lawsuits impacted the treatment process and the career of the physicians involved.

The Medscape Study

According to a recently published survey data, in a lawsuit regarding medical malpractices, 64% of the names belonged to the radiology domain. The data further claims that the top 10% of the list includes names of the specialists of the domain.

The data has a more detailed account of names listed in this lawsuit. It unleashes that 83% of the speciality list are general and plastic surgeons who hold the top position f the list. Names of orthopaedics occupy almost 81% of the list and that urologist is 80%. Cardiology is one of the most popular specialities and holds almost 53% of the top 10% of names.

When Medscape was getting ready for its malpractice surveys, it collected data from almost 4300 physicians. The survey was carried out from May to August. However, the reports did not have a clear account of the number of radiologists involved in this survey. In total, the team was surveyed across 29 specialities.

Detailed Analysis

The authors of the report made a detailed analysis of the data collected. According to them, 51% of the total physicians have been a part of the lawsuit at least once in their career. The names of specialists appear on this list more frequently than the primary level physicians. While the former category accounts for 56% of lawsuit cases, the latter hold only 42%. Moreover, the figures unleashed in this survey are way lower than the ones that existed before COVID hit the world.

The case studies of 2019 unfolded that 76% of the radiologists were involved in lawsuit cases, either individually or in association with others. The older reports of Medscape also surfaced that almost 62% of the names on the lawsuits were of the specialists’. The number of PCPs involved in such cases during the pre-COVID time was 52%.

The Conclusion

Given the skewed data, the authors concluded that COVID had a relation with these numbers for sure. During the period of lockdowns, people had restricted mobility. Therefore, they could not go out of their houses to access medical services or file lawsuits. This was the clear opinion of Michael Moroney, an attorney. He works with Flynn Watts LLC located in New Jersey’s Parsippany.

The Reasons

The report made it very clear that people were not always happy with the medical services they received from radiologists or specialists. But, what caused the discontent remains the primary issue. The surveyors collected data regarding the same and unfolded the fact that one-third of the respondents were not happy with the diagnosis or the delay in it.

Inaccurate and delayed diagnosis often resulted in treatment failures and other medical complications. In 29% of cases, such negligence caused surgery failures, with 26% cases of disease progression.

The Repercussions

According to the Medscape report, many specialists and radiologists were surprised at these lawsuit filings, and 83% even thought that it was unnecessary. Most of the specialists opted for out-of-court settlements with the parties.

Only one-third of the cases finally reached trial. 14% of the plaintiffs hoped to have done the documentation more effectively. However, 49% of them insisted that they could not have done it in any other way.

Almost 75% of the physicians remarked that these lawsuits did not impact their careers adversely. On the other hand, 40% of the physicians said that the lawsuit process took almost 1-2 years which turned out to be the worst phase of their professional experience.

One of the specialists even suggested that fellow physicians remain prepared and check all their records. They also advised the sued doctors to answer the questions briefly, carefully and precisely.

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