Personal Injury Law

Report Questions Whether the Employment of Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners Increase Liability

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants is reporting that a report has been gathered to assess whether physician assistant and nurse practitioner utilization increases liability. This study comprises of 17 years of data that was used to compare and contrast malpractice incidence, payment amount and other measurers of liability among doctors, Pas and advance practice nurses.

Most of this study concerns liability in comparison to salary. There was a significant differences were found in liability reports among doctors, PAs and APNs. While physicians made malpractice payments double that of PAs, their payments were less than that of APNs. No matter the level of medical malpractice payment, missed diagnosis was the leading reson for the malpractice report. It was also reported that female providers incurred higher payments than males. A trend analysis found in the study shows that the rate of malpractice payments for physicians, Pas and APNs has been steady and consistent with the growth of the number of providers.

The ending conclusion of the study is that the incorporation of Pas and APNs into American society has been a safe and beneficial undertaking when compared with that of doctors. It is obvious that the more employees that are in a hospital, the less medical errors are made. The chances of paying a medical malpractice award was 1 in 62 physicians and yet 1 in 563 for PAs. This leads to a medical malpractice risk for PAs to less than 9.1 times the risk for physicians. To learn more about this medical malpractice study, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on May 10, 2010 (boomark / email).