During the past three decades, medical malpractice insurance has experienced periodic crises of lack of available coverage and/or increased price of coverage.1 One solution in some states has been the implementation of public medical malpractice insurance plans, the most common type being Patient Compensation Funds (PCFs).2 By definition, PCFs offer insurance for medical malpractice liability t...

* Work on this Article was supported by grant number HS 01539 from the National Center for Health Services Research, United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare. ** Research Attorney, Program on Legal Issues in Health Care, Duke University. A.B. 1968, University of Chicago; J.D. 1971, Harvard Law School. THE FOLLOWING CITATIONS WILL BE USED IN THIS ARTICLE: A. HOLDER, MEDICAL MALP...

I laud Dr. DeMaria’s efforts in summarizing the issues surrounding the medical malpractice crisis in the November issue of the Journal (1). However, I am struck by the lack of courage of state medical licensing boards in not advocating for stronger laws, policies, and procedures to focus on the 5% of physicians responsible for 50% malpractice payouts. Whereas the medical profession should be co...

Understanding how medical malpractice occurs and is resolved is important to improving patient safety and preserving the viability of a physician's career in academic medicine. Every physician is likely to be sued by a patient, and how the physician responds can change his or her professional life. However, the principles of medical malpractice are rarely taught or addressed during residency tr...

The rapid increase in medical malpractice insurance claims and concomitant increases in premiums in the early 1970's concerned the medical and government communities. In 1974 alone, there was a 195 percent increase in malpractice suits filed in State courts (Federal Medical Malpractice Insurance Act, 1975). Major efforts to understand the nature of the "crisis" and its potential solutions inclu...

By many accounts, the United States is in the midst of its third medical malpractice “crisis.” Physicians in several states are facing high and rising premiums. The largest national medical malpractice carrier and some large multistate physician-backed liability firms have recently left the market. Rising premiums are traced largely to increases in claims severity. Capping malpractice payments ...

The legal system depends on the medical expert for evidence. Doctors readily complain about frivolous cases that go to trial, yet a lawyer cannot bring a frivolous claim to trial without a physician expert witness stating that the claim is not frivolous. An insurance company cannot raise premiums without medical expert witnesses servicing the increasing litigation against the insured. Physician...

This chapter reviews two areas of the medical regulation literature; the licensing of medical professionals and medical malpractice. The licensing literature draws upon a more general literature which explains the existence of regulation as reflecting the interests of either (1) the regulated profession, (2) the public, or (3) a combination of both the public and the profession. The major contr...

BACKGROUND AND METHODS By matching the medical records of a random sample of 31,429 patients hospitalized in New York State in 1984 with statewide data on medical-malpractice claims, we identified patients who had filed claims against physicians and hospitals. These results were then compared with our findings, based on a review of the same medical records, regarding the incidence of injuries t...