Knowledge Library

Communications issues — communication problems between healthcare providers and failure to follow-up on tests/consults — were among the most expensive (highest indemnity) and most frequent (number of claims) associated issues in medical liability claims.*

Telemedicine continues to grow at an impressive rate as increasing numbers of providers adopt it in their practices, and the technology continues to improve for connecting with and delivering virtual care to patients.

Patient experience: “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perceptions across the continuum of care”¹

Today’s healthcare consumers are better educated with greater access to information to guide them than ever before. They're acting in many ways more like modern retail consumers than the passive recipients of medical care of years past.² As they do in other areas of their lives are leaning heavily on physician reviews to help them select a physician.¹

The digital practice—the electronic storage, access, sharing, and monitoring of health information—promises increased convenience, improved patient care, and lower costs.¹ But this electronic access to medical records also brings with it a potentially costly risk to medical practices.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services declared a public health emergency to address the opioid crisis.¹ But while increased awareness and better prescribing practices have helped—overall prescribing rates peaked in 2012 and have declined each year since to a 12-year low in 2017.³—there is still cause for concern. In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died of an opioid overdose and an estimated 1.7 million suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioids.²