Defensive Medicine Among High-Risk Specialist Physicians in a Volatile Malpractice Environment

Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice

Hidden Costs? Malpractice Allegations and Defensive Medicine Among Cardiac Surgeons

This article evaluates the impact of private allegations of malpractice against cardiac surgeons on their patients’ outcomes and characteristics. While tort law may impact observable physician costs, malpractice allegations also impose hidden costs that could also affect physician behavior. We employ a large and multi-year panel dataset and patient-level analysis to ascertain whether malpractic...

Malpractice Liability and Defensive Medicine: A National Survey of Neurosurgeons

BACKGROUND Concern over rising healthcare expenditures has led to increased scrutiny of medical practices. As medical liability and malpractice risk rise to crisis levels, the medical-legal environment has contributed to the practice of defensive medicine as practitioners attempt to mitigate liability risk. High-risk specialties, such as neurosurgery, are particularly affected and neurosurgeons...

The Differential Effects of Malpractice Reform: Defensive Medicine in Obstetrics

Despite widespread reports of defensive medicine in surveys of physicians, empirical investigations have produced conflicting evidence. This paper models the interactions in a health insurance market, predicting that rises in medical malpractice pressure have non-monotonic effects on health care spending. Spending rises with malpractice pressure until reaching a threshold, and decreases thereaf...

Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice (Part 6 of 19)

A lthough it is impossible to measure with much Precision the extent of defensive medicine, the evidence summarized in Chapter 3 implies that it is neither a trivial nor a major contributor to health care costs. This chapter examines how different approaches to reforming the medical malpractice system might affect the frequency of defensive medicine. The chapter examines the potential for tort ...