Nursing Claims More Severe, Defense More Expensive

Claims involving nursing care are becoming more severe, with treatment or care allegations remaining the top concern, according to the Nurse Professional Liability Claim Report, 5th edition from Nurses Service Organization (NSO) in Fort Washington, PA. These are some of the key findings in the report:

• Claims are becoming more severe: The average total incurred per claim increased 12.5% to $236,749, and nearly 8% of claims now exceed $750,000.
• Home healthcare risks are rising: Home healthcare nurses now account for 21.7% of all malpractice claims, the highest share of any specialty. The average claim cost in this category jumped 39.3% to $301,031.
• Treatment and care remain the top issue: More than half of all claims (56.2%) involved treatment or care allegations, with the average cost up 15.1% since 2020.
• License defense costs continue to climb: The average payment per license defense rose 18.3% to $6,304, with professional conduct complaints accounting for 38% of all closed matters.

There are several factors that are driving the increase, says Jennifer Flynn, CPHRM, risk manager with NSO.

“It’s attributed to something called social inflation, where it can only be described as claims are resolving at amounts higher than what would be just a typical inflationary rate increase, but it’s usually driven by nuclear jury verdicts,” she says. “Those are awards of $10 million or more. There was a case in the news just last year involving a claim resolved against two New Jersey nurses in which the jury awarded $38 million. But we also see this theory of litigation funding, meaning companies are standing behind a plaintiff to keep them in the claim if they feel like they can win it.”

Flynn says probably the biggest thing driving the increase is a change in society’s attitude toward malpractice claims. The higher awards signal a feeling that someone has to be held accountable for the claims, she says.

“There’s oftentimes a very sympathetic nature to the claims. There’s a little bit of mistrust sometimes with the spread through social media, because not only do we find out news or stories immediately, but it is just stories that happen in our own backyards anymore,” Flynn says. “That really also affects the thoughts of the variety of individuals we have in the jury pool, everyone from a more experienced older person to newer people and their perceived value of that dollar that they’re awarding.”

The full report is available online at https://www.nso.com/Learning/Artifacts/Claim-Reports/Nurses-Malpractice-Insurance-Claim-Report

Greg Freeman has worked with Clinican.com and its predecessor companies since 1989, moving from assistant staff writer to executive editor before becoming a freelance writer. He has been the editor of Healthcare Risk Management since 1992 and provides research and content for other Clinician.com products. In addition to his work with Clinician.com, Greg provides other freelance writing services and is the author of seven narrative nonfiction books on wartime experiences and other historical events.