The medical community often argues that physician fear of legal liability increases health care spending. Theoretically, though, the effect could be positive or negative, and empirical evidence has supported both cases. Previous empirical work, however, has ignored the fact that physicians face risk from industry oversight groups like statelevel medical licensing boards in addition to civil lit...

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...

Using an evolutionary game, we show that patients and physicians can interact with predator-prey relationships. Litigious patients who seek compensation are the 'predators' and physicians are their 'prey'. Physicians can adapt to the risk of being sued by performing defensive medicine. We find that improvements in clinical safety can increase the share of litigious patients and leave unchanged ...

INTRODUCTION Defensive medicine is a medical practice in which health care providers' primary intent is to avoid criticism and lawsuits, rather than providing for patients' medical needs. The purpose of this study was to characterize medical students' exposure to defensive medicine during medical school rotations. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional survey study of medical students at the ...

This paper considers a model of defensive medicine where doctors are imperfect agents of insured patients. A national insurer subsidises both curative and preventive medical care consumed by risk averse patients. We show that in such an environment, the optimal liability regime is similar to the no-fault systems of Sweden and New Zealand where the doctor faces zero liability. The reason is that...

OBJECTIVE To describe the daily work practice under the threat of defensive medicine among obstetricians and gynecologists. STUDY DESIGN A prospective cross-sectional survey of obstetricians and gynecologists working at tertiary medical centers in Israel. RESULTS Among the 117 obstetricians and gynecologists who participated in the survey, representing 10% of the obstetricians and gynecolog...

The motto of modern youth sounds very encouraging: “It's fashionable to be healthy!”. It is important develop these tendencies, and consolidate the attitude towards them as natural needs.
 Modern medicine (of diseases sickness!) heals diseases, but does not form a mood in people for healthy lifestyle. A doctor from "Doctor Aibolit" should become "health architect", "medicine diseases" medi...