In the four years since Congress passed a law allowing troops to file claims against the Defense Department for medical malpractice, the military services have received 597 claims and approved just 20, or 3%.
Before the law was signed in late 2019, military hospitals and physicians largely were immune to claims from active-duty members under the Feres doctrine, a 1950s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars personnel from suing the federal government for injuries considered incidental to service.
But the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision allowing troops to file compensation claims for malpractice at U.S. military medical treatment facilities moving forward and made it retroactive from Jan. 1, 2020, by two years.
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Data provided by the services to Military.com showed the Army, the largest service, has received 258 claims and approved 12, worth $3.3 million.
The service did not provide more details about the approved claims, but roughly $2 million of the payout went to the family of an Army soldier diagnosed with Stage IV rectal cancer after his military treatment facility denied multiple requests for colonoscopies recommended by his doctor, according to the family’s attorney, Natalie Khawam, founder of Whistleblower Law Firm in Tampa, Florida.
The Army has denied 81 claims and, according to the service, is…
