Perioperative Pharmacologic Prophylaxis of Venous Thromboembolism: A Professional Liability Analysis

Fear of medical liability is a major driver for broad administration of perioperative prophylactic anticoagulation, despite the persistently low rates of clinically symptomatic venous thromboembolism events (VTE) postoperatively. This study was undertaken to evaluate the medicolegal landscape of perioperative VTE and its pharmaceutical prophylaxis.

The Westlaw legal database was retrospectively searched for verdicts in medical professional liability cases in the United States between 2009 and 2020. One search strategy focused on perioperative VTE, and a second on claims of hemorrhagic complications in patients receiving perioperative anticoagulation.

The search for VTE revealed 129 cases, and the search for hemorrhagic complications identified 24 cases. Almost half of the VTE cases were brought following orthopedic surgery (49%), and 29% following general surgery. The most common claims were failure to diagnose and treat during hospital stay or after discharge (74%), and failure to prescribe/administer anticoagulation (46%). Verdict for the health care professional (i.e., the defendant) was reached in 75% of cases. The median payout for patient verdicts was 1,213,644 USD (interquartile range 1,014,100; 150,000-7,700,000). Of hemorrhagic complication cases, 42% occurred in patients receiving VTE prophylaxis. In these cases, 82% resulted in a defendant verdict.

Reasons for in-court medical professional liability claims involving perioperative VTE were mainly failure to diagnose VTE and rescue patients from complications postoperatively. The high rate of defendant verdicts supports the notion that decisions on VTE prophylaxis should not be influenced by fear of liability.