Radiologists face a yearly risk of getting slapped with a malpractice suit not too different from the average across all specialties, according to a new study which found most doctors face a high lifetime risk of getting sued but few ever have to pay.

The study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that around 7.4 percent of doctors, on average, face a malpractice suit each year, roughly similar to those specializing in diagnostic radiology, for the 1991-2005 study period.

Neurosurgeons had the greater risk -- nearly one in five faces a suit every year. Psychiatrists had the lowest, at 2.6 percent.

However, near the end of a doctor's career -- age 65 -- basically all doctors from high-risk specialties will have faced a claim; the same applies to three-quarters of doctors from low-risk specialties, according to the researchers' estimates.

Still, despite the frequency of claims, most don't lead to payments or settlements. On average, in nearly eight out of 10 claims the doctor doesn't pay anything, the study said.

Of course, payments, when they hit, vary widely. The mean indemnity payment was $275,000, but ranged from $118,000 for dermatology to $521,000 for pediatrics.

The research was done by directly analyzing malpractice claims at an unnamed, large liability insurer covering 40,000 physicians. The project was led by Amitabh Chandra, with Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and was supported by grants from the RAND Institute for Civil Justice in Santa Monica, Calif. and the National Institute on Aging.

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