{"id":3745,"date":"2016-10-03T14:13:34","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T14:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.medic8.com\/news\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2017-11-09T15:42:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T15:42:37","slug":"the-staggering-costs-of-medical-malpractice-9237","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.medic8.com\/news\/the-staggering-costs-of-medical-malpractice-9237\/","title":{"rendered":"The Staggering Costs of Medical Malpractice-9237"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medical malpractice is more common than you might think and it recently ranked third biggest cause of death in the US, according to an article published earlier this year on The Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The article is based on a study published in the British Medical Journal, which revealed that only cancer<\/a> and heart failure are more deadly, as medical errors account for 9.5% of all fatalities in the US.<\/p>\n

In the UK, medical malpractice has also regularly made the headlines, with a reported \u00a31 billion paid by the NHS in 2015 to injury lawyers and patients who suffered harm following a medical treatment or procedure.<\/p>\n

Officials insist that skyrocketing legal bills do not reflect lower medical standards, but instead they are a consequence of an overall system that is in dire need of a complete overhaul, with measures such as capped legal costs and compensations for each medical malpractice case.<\/p>\n

Legal terms<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Legally, medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare professional doesn\u2019t follow the \u201cstandard care\u201d during the treatment of a patient. The \u201cstandard care\u201d in legal terms corresponds essentially to what other reasonable and knowledgeable medical providers would have done in similar circumstances. It might sound like a bit of a blurry definition, but in the end, it all comes down to seeing whether or not a doctor or other healthcare specialist has been negligent.<\/p>\n

This has to be nuanced though, as bad outcomes during a medical procedure aren\u2019t always due to negligence.<\/p>\n

In the UK, the Citizen Advice bureau more specifically explains that a medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider:<\/p>\n