Hidden Costs? Malpractice Allegations and Defensive Medicine Among Cardiac Surgeons

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...

Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice

Study of Medical Students' Malpractice Fear and Defensive Medicine: A “Hidden Curriculum?”

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 ...

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 ...

Physician Asset Protection , Malpractice Insurance , and Defensive Medicine ∗

Malpractice insurance provides for payments to patients so that a physician need not compensate harmed patients from personal assets. The bankruptcy system also protects a debtor's assets from seizure by creditors. In this paper, we estimate the e ect of personal asset protection on physician practice decisions. Variation in bankruptcy law provides exogenous variation in risk to physician perso...