Key takeaways:
- Physicians solely have sufficient protection to deal with a fraction of elite athletes.
- Insurance policies to deal with 95% of NFL, MLB and NHL athletes would require $52.6 million, $108.1 million and $64.1 million, respectively.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As a consequence of a scarcity of adequate malpractice legal responsibility protection and the steadily growing worth {of professional} sports activities contracts, surgeons face important monetary dangers when caring for elite athletes, based on knowledge introduced right here.
“Athletes, franchises and brokers want to grasp that though it’s an honor to deal with skilled athletes, we’re in danger,” Prem N. Ramkumar, MD, MBA, hip and knee surgeon and medical director at Commons Clinic, informed Healio about outcomes introduced on the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports activities Medication Annual Assembly. “There must be an understanding of that, particularly with the best way issues are headed.”
Ramkumar and colleagues retrospectively reviewed publicly out there contract knowledge from Nationwide Soccer League (n = 2,447), Main League Baseball (n = 992) and Nationwide Hockey League (n = 980) gamers through the 2022 to 2023 season to guage malpractice legal responsibility publicity of the surgeons caring for these athletes.
In keeping with the examine, threat ratios have been calculated with respect to occurrence-based malpractice legal responsibility awards of $1 million and $3 million.
Final result knowledge have been stratified by place, group, contract worth and imply yearly wage.
Crew physicians who’ve $1 million in malpractice insurance coverage can totally deal with simply 17.3% of NFL athletes, 43.2% of MLB athletes and 13.6% of NHL athletes, based on the examine.
Ramkumar and colleagues additionally discovered that the required legal responsibility insurance policies to deal with 95% of NFL, MLB and NHL athletes could be $52.6 million, $108.1 million and $64.1 million, respectively.
As well as, Ramkumar and colleagues discovered that quarterback (RR = 9.9), proper area (RR = 15.1) and heart (RR = 5.7) have been the positions related to the best threat ratios within the NFL, MLB and NHL, respectively.
“It’s unlucky and paradoxical as a result of it makes lots of our greatest docs not need to lend our experience to our greatest athletes,” Ramkumar stated. “We’re all attempting to do our greatest, however on the finish of the day, if we aren’t masking ourselves — and are readily scapegoated within the media — we’re in danger. And that may be a downside.”
He added, “There ought to be some type of guardrails for supplemental protection or threat sharing between the franchise and the doctor or the doctor’s apply.”
References:
For extra info:
Prem N. Ramkumar, MD, MBA, will be reached at information@premramkumar.com; Web site: ; www.commonsclinic.com.
Sources/Disclosures
Collapse
Ramkumar PN, et al. Paper 37. Introduced at: American Orthopaedic Society for Sports activities Medication Annual Assembly; July 10-13, 2025; Nashville, Tenn.
Disclosures:
Ramkumar experiences offering collegiate {and professional} athlete medical protection for Lengthy Seaside State Athletics and X-Video games athletes.
