The detection, analysis, and significance of physician clustering in medical malpractice lawsuit payouts.
Prior research demonstrates that a small percentage of physicians are responsible for a significant proportion of paid malpractice claims. This study found that 1.8% of physicians accounted for 50% of paid claims reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank over 25 years. The authors suggest that the adverse impact of such outlier physicians needs to be addressed in order to ensure patient safety.