The American Medical Association (AMA) regularly polls a representative sample of its members on the question of malpractice suits. The AMA asks whether the doctor was sued in the last year and how many times she or he had been sued in their careers. The AMA recently issued a report on the incidence of suits against its doctors over the last eight years and a separate report about the malpractice premiums the doctors pay. Turns out that although the incidence of malpractice suits is dropping, and has been for years, malpractice premiums continue to rise.
The results disclosed by the AMA run counter to the position taken by the medical industry in its regular request for Congress and state legislatures to protect it from a veritable tsunami of frivolous malpractice suits. Only 1.8% of the surveyed doctors had been sued in the last year of the survey, which was 2024. This was a reduction from the baseline of 2016 when 2.3% of physicians were sued. The decrease was part of a long-term trend going back into the 1990’s. Between 1991 and 2295, the annual rate of malpractice suits was over 7%. Rates of suit over the careers of the surveyed physicians dropped as well from 34% in 2016 to 28% in 2024. This was also the continuation of a long-term trend.
Being named in a malpractice suit is not the same as being found liable. Often, because medical records do not accurately reflect who did what to the patient and who is responsible for an avoidable injury, the patient is forced to name all of the doctors involved in the care in order to conduct discovery to get to the bottom of the malpractice. When it becomes clear that a given doctor was not involved in the malpractice, that doctor is usually dismissed from the lawsuit. According the AMA’s statistics, 65% of the suits against the surveyed doctors were dropped, dismissed, or withdrawn. 29% of the claims were resolved by settlement. Only 6% of the claims actually went to trial and were decided by jury verdict. Of those that went to jury verdict, the doctors won 89% of the time. It is hard to see how the medical profession can argue with a straight face that the system is broken and that they are the victims of runaway juries out to punish the doctors.
Given the amount of malpractice that has been documented over and over, the people who are victims of the justice system are not the doctors, but the patients who cannot convince juries to hold doctors responsible for their avoidable mistakes. Juries just do not want to believe doctors make mistakes that kill and injure patients. Believing that makes it hard to sleep at night.
In spite of these rosy statistics for doctors, the insurance companies keep on raising the premiums they charge for malpractice coverage. According to the AMA’s report on premiums, between 2019 and 2025, there was a sustained increase in premiums, a pattern not seen in over 20 years. In 2025, almost half of the doctors reported a premium increase over the prior year. The AMA does not offer an opinion as to the reason for the disparity between falling lawsuit numbers and steadily increasing premiums, but hints darkly at another “liability crisis,” which can affect patients’ access to care. In other words, doctors may choose to leave the practice or the area, if they have to pay too much for malpractice insurance.
As has also been clear for a long time, there is little relationship between malpractice premiums and doctor’s being sued and held liable for their mistakes. While what they have to pay out does affect the premium decisions malpractice insurers pay, premiums are also affected by the stock market returns on invested premiums, competition in the marketplace, compensation structure at the insurance company, herd mentality, and many other factors. The next “liability crisis” that will require lawmakers to give further special privileges to doctors is coming, but, when it arrives, it will have little to do with doctors being sued.
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