Abstract
Objectives:
Orthopaedic surgeons play a critical role in ensuring the health and safety of professional athletes. Despite the privilege of treating elite athletes, there exists great financial exposure to individual physicians in the event of a malpractice lawsuit. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and model malpractice liability exposure of the sports medicine surgeon caring for athletes in the National Football League(NFL), Major League Baseball(MLB), and National Hockey League(NHL) with respect to player position and additional supplemental malpractice insurance needs. We hypothesize that current liability coverage cannot adequately address the demands of caring for elite athletes in major sports leagues.
Methods:
2,447 NFL, 992 MLB, and 980 NHL player contracts from the 2022-23 season were aggregated from a publicly available online database. Position, team, total contract value, and average yearly salary were noted. Risk ratios were calculated with respect to $1mm USD and $3mm USD of annual occurrence-based malpractice liability awards and used to generate a “covered-to-treat” analysis. Supplemental malpractice liability insurance was quantified.
Results:
Assuming $1mm USD and $3mm USD occurrence-based awards covered by malpractice liability insurance, team physicians can fully are financially eligible to treat 17.3% and 50.0% of NFL players, 43.2% and 59.7% of MLB players, and 13.6% and 41.0% of NHL players, without incurring additional personal financial risk, from a risk-based medicolegal model. Liability policies of $52.6mm USD, $108.1mm USD, and $64.1mm USD are required to treat 95% of NFL, MLB, and NHL players, respectively. Positions carrying the greatest risk ratios are QB(9.9) in the NFL, Right Field(15.1) in the MLB, and Center(5.7) in the NHL.
Conclusions:
Sports medicine specialists caring for elite athletes face potential personal financial risk due to insufficient medicolegal coverage. While coverage may vary amongst different practice settings including private, academic, or public state institutions, medical malpractice risk is crucial in partnerships between sports franchises, hospitals, players, agents, and physicians to protect sports medicine physicians and offer the highest quality care.
