The healthcare industry in the US has become a litigious area during this decade, which began with the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law by President Barack Obama. The bill, together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amendment, aimed to reduce the number of citizens without health insurance–and the percentage of uninsured has fallen to 11.4 percent as of July of this year, from 18 percent in the third quarter of 2013, Gallup reported.
The number of healthcare cases filed that could trigger coverage under directors and officers insurance more than quintupled to 273 at its height in 2013, from 50 in 2006, and is on track to rise further this year.
The vast majority of the lawsuits have concerned billing fraud (76 percent) since the 1990s. Anti-trust and merger objection lawsuits, the next biggest categories, trail at 7 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
According to cases tracked by Advisen, just under half have resulted in losses of less than a $1M. As many as 95 percent of losses cost companies around $15,000 each.
