Most medical malpractice stems from a handful of predictable problems: missed or delayed diagnoses, medication errors, surgical mistakes, and communication breakdowns. That means many of these errors are preventable, and patients who actively participate in their own care are significantly less likely to experience them. You can’t control everything that happens in a hospital or doctor’s office, but you can take concrete steps that catch errors before they cause harm.
Where Errors Happen Most
Diagnostic failures are the single largest category of malpractice claims. In Washington State’s most recent malpractice report covering 2020 to 2024, “failure to diagnose” accounted for 341 closed claims, with another 108 tied to delayed diagnosis and 39 to wrong diagnosis. Together, diagnostic problems represented the biggest share of the nearly 3,000 total claims closed during that period. The next largest group, broadly categorized as errors in performance, included 1,103 claims covering surgical mistakes, retained instruments, and procedural complications.
Other common categories include medication prescribing errors, anesthesia administration problems, and childbirth-related injuries. Knowing where errors cluster gives you a map for where to focus your attention.
Ask the Right Questions About Your Diagnosis
A Mayo Clinic study found that 88 percent of patients who sought a second opinion left with a new or refined diagnosis. Only 12 percent had their original diagnosis fully confirmed. In 21 percent of cases, the diagnosis was completely changed.
Those numbers are striking, and they point to something practical: diagnoses are often less certain than they feel in the moment. You can improve accuracy by asking a few direct questions during your appointment. Ask your doctor what else your symptoms could be. Ask what tests would rule out other possibilities. Ask what would change if the initial diagnosis turns out to be wrong. These questions push the diagnostic process toward what clinicians call a differential diagnosis, where multiple explanations are considered rather than locking onto the first one.
If you’re dealing with a serious or complex condition, seeking a second opinion is one of the most effective things you can do. It’s a routine part of medicine, not a sign of distrust.
Take Control of Medication Safety
Medication errors are among the most preventable types of harm, and the CDC recommends several straightforward habits that make a real difference. Keep a current list of every medication, vitamin, and supplement you take, and bring it to every appointment. Make sure each prescribing doctor knows about everything on that list, because drug interactions are a common source of problems that no single provider may catch on their own.
When you pick up a new prescription, read the label carefully. Check the active ingredients, especially if you also take over-the-counter medications, since doubling up on the same ingredient (like acetaminophen appearing in both a pain reliever and a cold medicine) is a frequent and dangerous mistake. If the dosing instructions aren’t clear, ask your pharmacist before taking the first dose. For children’s medications, always use the measuring device that comes in the package rather than a kitchen spoon.
One more habit worth building: if a medication looks different from what you normally take, or if the dose seems higher or lower than expected, say something. Pharmacy mix-ups happen, and your own familiarity with your medications is a genuine safety net.
Participate in Surgical Safety Checks
Wrong-site surgery sounds like a nightmare scenario, but it happens often enough that hospitals now follow a universal protocol to prevent it. Part of that protocol directly involves you. Before any procedure, a member of the surgical team should mark the correct site on your body while you’re awake and aware. You should be able to see and confirm that mark.
The surgical team also performs a “time out” in the operating room, a final verification pause where they confirm the patient’s identity, the procedure, and the surgical site before beginning. If you’re awake during this step (as with procedures under local anesthesia), pay attention and speak up if anything sounds wrong. Before your surgery, ask the surgeon to walk you through what will happen, and confirm the site yourself. If no one marks your surgical site or asks you to verify it, that’s a red flag worth raising immediately.
Understand What Informed Consent Really Means
Informed consent isn’t just a form you sign. Legally and ethically, it requires your doctor to explain the nature of the procedure, the risks and benefits, reasonable alternatives (including doing nothing), and the risks of those alternatives. Your understanding of all of these elements is a required part of the process.
Before signing anything, make sure you can answer these questions: What exactly is being done? What could go wrong? What are my other options? What happens if I choose not to do this? If you can’t answer those questions clearly, you haven’t received adequate informed consent. Ask for more explanation. No competent provider will rush you through this step, and if one does, that itself is worth noting.
Many consent forms also include a statement that there are no guarantees of a particular outcome. That’s standard. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a clear picture of realistic success rates for your specific situation.
Communicate Clearly and Expect the Same
Poor communication between patients and providers is a thread running through nearly every category of malpractice. Research consistently links effective patient-physician communication to lower rates of malpractice claims and better health outcomes, including improvements in areas as specific as depression treatment and emotional well-being.
Shared decision making, where you and your doctor exchange information and jointly decide on a course of treatment, is the communication model most strongly associated with better outcomes. In practice, this means your doctor explains the options and trade-offs, you share your preferences and concerns, and together you arrive at a plan. If you feel like decisions are being made for you rather than with you, slow the conversation down. Ask why a particular approach is recommended over alternatives.
Write down your questions before appointments. Repeat back what you’ve heard to confirm you understood correctly. If something doesn’t make sense, say so. These small actions change the dynamic of the visit and make errors less likely.
Bring an Advocate, Especially in the Hospital
When you’re hospitalized, sedated, in pain, or simply overwhelmed, your ability to catch errors drops. Having someone with you, whether a family member, friend, or professional patient advocate, adds a critical layer of protection. Advocacy in clinical settings centers on safeguarding, effective communication, empowerment, and support for ethical decision making.
In practical terms, an advocate can track what medications are administered and when, ask questions you might not think of, ensure your preferences are communicated to the care team, and flag inconsistencies. In intensive care settings, where patients are most vulnerable, advocates serve as intermediaries between the patient and multiple providers who may not be coordinating perfectly. They can confirm that informed consent was properly obtained before procedures, and they can push for clarity when discharge instructions are vague or confusing.
If you don’t have someone who can be physically present, ask the hospital whether it has a patient advocate on staff. Many do.
Keep Your Own Medical Records
Your medical records belong to you, and maintaining your own organized copy is one of the most underrated forms of self-protection. Johns Hopkins Medicine recommends keeping the following documents from at least the past year in an accessible place: doctor visit summaries and notes, hospital discharge summaries, test results (blood work, imaging, screenings), pharmacy printouts for prescribed medications, and insurance forms related to treatment. Older records for major events like surgeries, hospitalizations, and accidents should also be stored.
Beyond the basics, keep a family health history covering parents, siblings, and grandparents, since this information influences screening decisions and risk assessments. If you have a chronic condition, maintain a log of relevant measurements like blood pressure or blood sugar. Track how you respond to medications, noting the specific drug name, dose, and any side effects. This kind of detailed personal record gives every new provider a clearer picture and reduces the chance of repeated tests, conflicting prescriptions, or overlooked patterns.
Research Your Hospital Before You Go
Not all hospitals perform equally on safety, and several organizations publish ratings you can check before choosing where to receive care. The Leapfrog Group assigns letter grades from A to F based on safety measures like medication ordering systems, barcode verification, physician staffing levels, and rates of surgical complications. Hospital Compare, run as a nonprofit, weights its ratings heavily toward outcomes: mortality, safety of care, readmission rates, and patient experience. Healthgrades focuses on risk-adjusted mortality and complication rates. U.S. News and World Report ranks hospitals regionally and nationally across multiple specialties.
These systems don’t always agree with each other, since they weight different factors differently. But checking two or three of them gives you a reasonable picture. Pay particular attention to ratings on the specific type of care you need. A hospital that excels in cardiac surgery may be average for orthopedics. When you have a choice about where to receive treatment, especially for planned procedures, spending 15 minutes comparing safety records is time well spent.