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A pediatrician gave a child vaccines the chart said he needed. The record showing he had already had them was buried in the system. Dennis Hursh is a health law attorney and founder …
Blaming the doctor is cheaper than fixing the record system [PODCAST]
It’s time to call out medical malpractice for what it really is. Dick Durbin’s own words define what is behind medical malpractice. “Before I was elected to Congress, I worked in a courtroom. For years, I defended doctors and hospitals, and for years, I sued them on behalf of people, who were victims of medical malpractice.”
Dick Durbin became a lawyer in 1969. He was first elected to Congress in 1982. …
Frivolous malpractice lawsuits are a governance failure
The 1690s were turbulent times in Salem, Massachusetts. It started as a grudge between Puritans and Anglicans in Salem Village. Most farmers were Puritans, and most business owners and merchants were Anglicans. Central to that grudge was the Reverend Samuel Parris, a strict Puritan. His sermons denounced the affluence and worldliness of those in Salem Village as the reward for being in league with the Devil.
Then in February 1692, a …
Frivolous malpractice lawsuits are a modern witch hunt
There are commercials on TV by prominent plaintiff personal injury law firms advertising for clients. One promotes “If we don’t win, you don’t pay.” Another promotes the notion that anyone who owns a phone already has a lawyer. Still others promote the types of injuries that can be monetized, but never mention medical malpractice.
All imply that a contingency fee totally forgives clients of all legal transaction costs. All imply a …
A frivolous malpractice lawsuit still raises your premium
Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly reshaped cardiovascular imaging, particularly echocardiography, where machine learning algorithms now assist in image acquisition, chamber quantification, valvular assessment, strain analysis, and diagnostic interpretation. While these technologies promise enhanced efficiency and diagnostic accuracy, they also introduce an unresolved legal dilemma: When AI contributes to a missed diagnosis, who bears responsibility? Traditional malpractice principles designate the interpreting cardiologist as the primary legal decision-maker. Yet these doctrines evolved …
When AI misses a diagnosis, the cardiologist signs alone
If you are sued and satisfied with your defense, read no further. If not, you may find this article helpful.
Merit is inconclusive in every medical malpractice lawsuit ever filed, and it starts with the certificate of merit. To be clear, a certificate of merit is not proof of negligence. Proof is determined at trial. Merit is a measure for the reliability of evidence used in the proof of negligence, and …
Why merit decides a medical malpractice case
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He was sued for a case he barely remembered, and five years later it pushed him out of medicine. It is not just malpractice. Jordan Grumet is an internal medicine physician and the …
Doctors and patients are not the enemy here [PODCAST]
Every hospital in America has a critical-results policy. When a scan reveals something dangerous, the finding gets escalated urgently, personally, in a way that cannot fall through the cracks. Hospitals write these rules because they know a missed handoff kills as surely as a missed diagnosis.
In June, a jury in Aroostook County, Maine’s northernmost, most rural county, returned $23.1 million in what plaintiff’s counsel reports is the largest non-death medical …
What a medical malpractice verdict reveals about safety
We have spent our careers moving between the exam room, where we treat patients and their symptoms, and the classroom, where we teach medical, law, and business students how these worlds intersect. Lately those worlds are colliding in a way that should worry businesses, physicians, and parents alike.
A California jury recently found Meta and Google liable for a young woman’s depression, anxiety, and compulsive social media use, and commentators have …
Social media addiction litigation blames the wrong party
Research misconduct deserves scrutiny. But scrutiny should not become spectacle. The landmark 1980s case of U.S. cardiology researcher John Darsee remains a defining example. Auditors found extensive data fabrication, and federal sanctions reached beyond institutional leadership, forcing science research to confront supervision, authorship, and institutional accountability. The lesson was not simply that one researcher failed. The institution and research system also need safeguards.
Four decades later, the Retraction Watch leaderboard of …
Research integrity and accountability lessons from 2026
Senator Dick Durbin describes his career this way: “Before I was elected to Congress, I worked in a courtroom. For years, I defended doctors and hospitals, and for years, I sued them on behalf of people who were victims of medical malpractice.”
Dick Durbin’s own words betray that, first, he was defense counsel, earning a living being retained by malpractice insurance companies. Second, he was plaintiff counsel, earning a living by …
Medical malpractice reform and the lawyers who block it
Medical malpractice litigation in the United States is the endless struggle to find meaning.
Lawyers, plaintiff and defense attorneys alike, reject the notion that they are involved in a frivolous medical malpractice lawsuit. To protect themselves from this notion, they use semantics. There are four words: legitimate, meritorious, frivolous, and malicious.
Legitimate is whimsical. It is in the eyes of the beholder. According to lawyers, all claims are legitimate.
Legitimate is conflated with …
Frivolous malpractice lawsuits: Doctors can fight back
The story of medical malpractice litigation in the United States is the endless struggle to find meaning.
The United States is a litigious society. One out of every 230 Americans is a lawyer, and one out of every eight Americans will be involved in litigation in one way or another and will need a lawyer. There are 40 million lawsuits per year. Between 20,000 and 85,000 are medical malpractice claims. The …
Most medical malpractice lawsuits are meritless
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A miscreant is simply a troublemaker. When it comes to a medical malpractice lawsuit, the biggest miscreant is the defense attorney followed closely by the medical malpractice insurance company.
For a doctor, medical malpractice insurance coverage is the difference between financial security and ruin. I practice in the state of Maryland. Maryland law does not force physicians to buy medical malpractice insurance. Nevertheless, doctors must carry a policy, which has a …
Who your malpractice defense lawyer really works for
Earlier pieces argued that a favorable malpractice outcome leaves almost no public footprint, that outcome documents are the only content that can answer an outcome question, and, from a nine-surgeon Florida sample, that a dismissed lawsuit can still cost privileges.
When I published the Florida findings in July, it might have been fair to argue that they were too particular to cause concern: nine surgeons, one state, one specialty. Florida’s …
A dismissed malpractice lawsuit still outranks your win
A hospital credentialing committee is weighing an application for surgical privileges. Someone on the panel does what any of us would do: They type the surgeon’s name into Google, and because they are being careful, they add one word: “lawsuit.” A malpractice complaint surfaces on the first page. It lays out the allegation in plain language. What the panel does not see, anywhere on that page or the one after …
A dismissed malpractice lawsuit can still cost privileges
Medical malpractice in the United States has evolved into a system plagued by substantial problems. Each year, the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) reports statistics on an average of 13,000 medical malpractice lawsuits that are litigated. However, these are awards against practitioners, which account for one-third of all medical malpractice lawsuits that are litigated. Hence, 40,000 medical malpractice lawsuits are litigated.
Another source, Justpoint, reports that as many as 85,000 medical …
The medical malpractice system rewards delay
Medical malpractice claims are becoming more expensive, more volatile, and more consequential, even as overall claim frequency has decreased, driving up malpractice costs and rate pressure.
Actual medical malpractice claims frequency has declined from historic levels. In 2025, claims frequency was approximately 4.6 percent, down from 7.5 percent in 2016 and well below the roughly 17 percent average observed between 1991 and 2005. While physicians report fewer lawsuits than in the …
Why medical malpractice claims cost more than ever
An excerpt from The Healthcare Heist: How Physicians and Patients Can Unite to Transform Healthcare.
Every day, Francine said a little prayer for her doctor, sometimes upon awakening, often before drifting off to sleep at night. Her world had narrowed significantly since Simon, her husband, passed away the year before. With no children or close friends, Francine relied heavily on Doctor G to make sure that her needs were met.
Initially, …
Why doctors leave medicine after a malpractice suit
Thirteen thousand medical malpractice lawsuits with billions of dollars as either plaintiff verdicts or settlements are reported each year by the National Practitioner Data Bank. Hence there are big bucks to be made and these account for only 33.3 percent of all medical malpractice lawsuits that are litigated. Therefore, there are 40,000 medical malpractice lawsuits, which are litigated. Of these, 27,000 have no awards because they end favorable for the …
How merit in medical malpractice drives avoidable costs
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