Let’s say you work at an insurance company and your boss asks you to find doctors that have the highest chance of getting sued.

You start digging through data and you find something unexpected.

Primary care doctors are more likely to get sued for not showing enough care toward a patient than for any mistakes they might make while treating them.

A study analyzed what factors put physicians at risk of being sued. It all came down to patient dissatisfaction, especially when combined with a bad outcome. When patients felt like their doctor lacked caring and compassion, they were more likely to take the legal route.

For primary care doctors, longer visits (18.3 min. vs 15 min.), orienting patients about the visit flow, humor, and effective facilitation (encouraging patients to talk) were associated with fewer malpractice claims.

It’s all about how doctors connect with patients and how much they make them feel heard and cared for.

Scarcity of data is not an issue

Now you go back to your boss with this information and an even crazier idea.

Previous research already told us how primary care physicians' communication patterns influence malpractice claims, but what if we could reduce this talk to their tone of voice to determine the likelihood of being sued?

Psychologist Nalini Ambady and her team addressed this issue in a fascinating study. They analyzed 114 conversations between patients and community-practicing surgeons. Half of these surgeons had previous malpractice claims, while the other half had a clean slate.

They zoned in on 10-second speech segments and examined the tone of voice, specifically focusing on variables like dominance and concern/anxiety.

• Dominance referred to how much control or authority a doctor’s voice conveys during the conversation with a patient. A doctor might sound dominant if their voice is loud, deep, and confident. It’s like when someone is speaking with a strong, “take charge” attitude.

• The concern/anxiety variable pointed toward how caring and empathetic a doctor sounds when talking to a patient. If a doctor’s voice comes across as concerned or anxious, it meant they sounded genuinely worried about their patient’s well-being and feelings. It’s like when someone speaks with a kind and caring tone.

The results showed that surgeons who came across as more dominant in their tone were more likely to have faced lawsuits compared to their less dominant peers. Surgeons who conveyed less concern or anxiety in their voice also had a higher chance of dealing with malpractice claims.

The content of their speech didn’t explain these associations. It was all about the vocal cues!

What’s the lesson?

The way a surgeon talks to their patients can make a big difference. Sounding too dominant or indifferent could rub patients the wrong way and lead them to take legal action when things go awry.

With this information in hand, you can demonstrate to your boss that you have a way to significantly reduce the risk of lawsuits for your insurance company. By focusing on the doctors’ vocal game you can identify high-risk doctors and minimize the chances of malpractice claims.

It might sound crazy, but the way doctors speak — intonation, speed, pitch, and rhythm — can tell us a lot about their relationship with patients. Surprisingly, it’s not even about what they say, but how they say it that matters!

Don't dismiss these subtle feelings

The abovementioned study suggests that there’s a way to extract conclusions with less data.

There was no need to go through all the history between a patient and their doctor to find this particular tone of voice. If we can recognize a pattern, whether it’s based on a lot of data or just a little, we can understand the core of the problem and have a moment of revelation.

But this revelation may come as a whisper and fade quickly. It’s important to pay attention to these feelings and take a closer look before we reject them as nonsense.

So next time you’re in a doctor’s office and you have a sensation that they’re not listening to you, they’re condescending and treated without respect, don’t underestimate this feeling.