An Effective Program to Reduce Malpractice Claims and Payments in a Large Orthopaedic Practice

Area of Science:

• Healthcare management
• Patient safety
• Medical malpractice

Background:

• Healthcare reliability balances system design and professional accountability.
• Addressing clinicians with high patient complaint rates is crucial for accountability.
• The Patient Advocacy Reporting System (PARS) is a tiered intervention to mitigate clinician-related patient complaints.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of the Patient Advocacy Reporting System (PARS) on reducing patient complaints and malpractice claims.
• To assess the successful adoption and effectiveness of PARS within a surgical specialty group.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective cohort study analyzed malpractice claims data from 2004 to 2020.
• The study focused on a southeastern U.S. orthopaedic group practice.
• Assessed the implementation of the PARS program and its correlation with claims data.

Main Results:

• PARS implementation correlated with an 83% reduction in malpractice claims cost per high-risk clinician (p=0.05).
• The practice group saw an 87% decrease in mean annual malpractice claims cost per clinician (p=0.007).
• Key success factors included PARS champions, peer messengers, an Office of Patient Affairs, and clear professionalism expectations.

Conclusions:

• The PARS program was successfully adopted in a large, single-specialty orthopaedic practice.
• The post-PARS period showed a significant reduction in malpractice claim costs.
• PARS is an effective risk prevention and management strategy, associated with reduced malpractice costs.