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In 2003, Pennsylvania doctors protested rising medical malpractice insurance premiums. (AP Photo/Mark Stehle)

Medical malpractice payouts continue to shrink in the United States, according to a report from Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based organization.

Meanwhile, separate data from Pennsylvania courts shows a major decline in medical malpractice lawsuits from a decade ago.

Public Citizen contends it's important to highlight the drop, given that some congressional Republicans continue to cite medical malpractice payouts as a major driver of health care costs, and argue that limits are needed.

Public Citizen said the latest national figures show medical malpractice payouts and malpractice insurance premiums account for barely one-half of one percent of the nation's health care bill.

The organization also says the $3.1 billion in malpractice awards paid on behalf of doctors in 2012 is the lowest since 1998, and the lowest on record when adjusted for inflation.

"Medical malpractice payments continue to fall and health care costs continue to rise. It doesn't take a math whiz to determine they are not correlated," Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen said in a news release.

Still, in an interview, Public Citizen spokesman Taylor Lincoln acknowledged the payout figures only include payouts on behalf of doctors, not hospitals, which are often the subject of medical malpractice lawsuits.

While there's a national database pertaining to malpractice payouts involving doctors, there's no similar source of data on hospitals, he said.

He said Public Citizen would love to have such data, and he suggested the public should press legislators to make it available.

Also, Lincoln said the figures related to insurance premiums, which are from A.M. Best, reflect premiums of both doctors and hospitals.

If those figures are at the lowest point in a decade, it stands to reason payouts on behalf of hospitals also have fallen, he said.

The figures on Pennsylvania medical malpractice lawsuits come from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

According to those figures, there were 1,508 medical malpractice lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania in 2012, down from 1,675 in 2011; and down from an average of 2,733 in 2000-2002.

That amounts to 44.8 percent drop compared to the 2000-2002 average. The state court system, which compiles and publishes the numbers, compares the newest figures to 2000-2002 because that was right before a set of legal reforms in Pennsylvania intended to weed out frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits.

Still, the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania contends medical malpractice lawsuits remain a serious problem.

Martin Ciccocioppo, HAP's vice president of research, pointed out there were three malpractice jury awards that topped $10 million in 2012.

"The looming problem in Pennsylvania is there is no limitation on what a jury can award in terms of pain and suffering and that's the wildcard that every (health care) provider lives in fear of," he said.

Ciccocioppo said fear of being sued causes doctors to order unnecessary tests which drive up health care costs.

He also noted a state-run fund called MCARE, which helps pay malpractice awards that exceed the $500,000 per incident state law requires doctors and hospitals to carry, paid out $196 million in 2012, up from $170 million the previous year.

Still, those figures are well below the $379 million the fund paid out in 2003, according to figures from the Pennsylvania Insurance Department. Since then, the low was $146 million in 2010.

Many of the medical malpractice lawsuits filed in a given year are thrown out or settled before going to a jury. Others take years to reach a jury.

In Pennsylvania in 2012, there were 135 jury verdicts, with nearly 80 percent being decided in favor of the doctor or hospital. Of the 28 that resulted in a payout, 14 were for $500,000 or less; two were for $500,000 to $1 million; seven were for $1 million to $5 million; two were for $5 million to $10 million; and three topped $10 million, according to figures complied by the court system.

Another three cases were decided by non-jury trial, resulting in one payout that was $500,000 or less.

Here are some figures on medical malpractice lawsuit filing in central Pennsylvania counties:

Berks County: 26 medical malpractice lawsuits in 2012; up from 22 in 2011;

Cumberland County: 20 in 2012, down from 27 in 2011;

Dauphin County: 34 in 2012, down from 51 in 2011;

Lancaster County: 35 in 2012, up from 26 in 2011;

Lebanon County: 3 in 2012, down from 11 in 2011;

York County: 16 in 2012, the same as in 2011.

Public Citizen contends changes in state laws restricting patients' legal rights are responsible for the decline in lawsuits. It says studies show that between one-in-four and one-in-seven patients sustain unexpected injury of death.

In Pennsylvania, hospitals are required to report "serious events" to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, a state agency. Serious events are unexpected injuries and deaths related to medical care.

About 8,000 serious events were reported to the Patient Safety Authority in 2012.

The Patient Safety Authority is part of the medical malpractice-related reforms passed in 2002. The purpose is to collect reports on serious events and near-misses to figure out ways to prevent them. The actual incident reports are kept confidential, so that mistakes can be studied without hospitals and doctors having to fear admitting the mistake will result in a lawsuit.

Another change made in 2002 requires an independent doctor to certify a lawsuit has merit before it can be filed.