Medical malpractice cases in interventional radiology most commonly involve vascular procedures and biopsies, according to a new analysis published Tuesday.
About 35% of such suits stemmed from a vascular treatment, most commonly embolization (30%), stenting/angioplasties (21%) or diagnostic arteriography/angiography (18%). Meanwhile, about 26% involved an interventional radiologist delivering a biopsy, and 18% came after a physician failed to gain informed consent (in addition to alleged medical negligence).
The findings are from an analysis of 389 published case summaries across two large U.S. legal databases, detailed in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
“This study is illustrative that published malpractice cases involving IRs typically involve procedural errors or failure to obtain informed consent,” Jonathan Mezrich, MD, JD, MBA, with the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at Yale, and colleagues concluded. “Therefore, comprehensive preprocedural planning with counseling can help minimize the number and impact of malpractice cases.”
Of the nearly 400 case summaries identified, 93 met the inclusion criteria, occurring across 23 states. Plaintiffs accused individual interventional radiologists of medical malpractice in 46% of cases, while 43% named both an IR and healthcare institution as defendants.
Radiologists appeared to fare better when reaching an agreement prior to going to trial. About 11% of cases were resolved by settlement, at an average amount of $877,500 (and a range of $200,000 to $2.7 million). Of the 72 cases that went to trial, 74% resulted in favor of the provider. Plaintiffs proved victorious in the other 26%, earning an average award of $2.01 million (and ranging from $101,667 to $6.4 million).
“A vast majority of malpractice cases tend to be settled or dismissed prior to any published decision and only an illustrative fraction of the actual contemplated litigation is ever captured in a legal database,” Mezrich and co-authors advised. “IRs and institutions should be cognizant of the likelihood of judgment in their jurisdiction, and the potential level of exposure per case when evaluating what procedures they might engage in and their appropriate level of insurance coverage.”
Read more in JACR at the link below.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.