Meer en hogere schadeclaims

Objective

To investigate the number and extent of claims concerning hospital care at a national level, thereby affording insight to the profession.

Design

A quantitative, descriptive and comparative study.

Method

We used anonymised data on all claims for damages from regular hospital care that were submitted to Centramed and MediRisk between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2016. Between them, these two companies are the insurers of 95% of all Dutch hospitals. Using SPSS and Mathematica, we analysed the number of claims submitted, the average duration of the procedures, the manner in which they were settled, developments in the total cost of claims, and the settlements paid out to claimants.

Results

A total of 15,115 claims were made between 2007 and 2016. Up to 2013, the number of claims increased annually, thereafter this stabilised. In 2016, 4.5% more claims were submitted than in 2007. During the same period, 15,306 claims were closed. The total claim-related cost was € 229,191,033 and showed a clearly rising trend throughout this period. In 2016 the cost of claims was four-and-a-half times as high as in 2007.

Conclusion

The number of claims being made is rising, but not as quickly as the cost of claims which increased fivefold during the period under investigation. Compared with previous investigations, both the number and the extent of the claims increased significantly between 2007 and 2016.

Conflict of interest and financial support: none declared.