Background: Variables affecting malpractice rates are important to the medical profession. Empirical data on trends in malpractice payments and settlements from anesthesiologists, surgeons, pediatricians and psychiatrists over an eight-year period are publicly available for analysis. Methods: A literature search of PubMed and Index Medicus was conducted for the years from 1985 to 2013 using the...

Policymakers and the public are concerned about the role of medical malpractice liability in the rising cost of medical care. We use variation in the generosity of local juries to identify the causal impact of malpractice liability on medical costs, mortality, and social welfare. The effect of malpractice on medical costs is large relative to its share of medical expenditures, but relatively mo...

Medical malpractice doctrine is one of the core issues in the current debate over healthcare reform in the United States. For decades now, it has been universally accepted that the threat or reality of formal litigation stemming from—or at least claiming—malpractice has been the single most important factor shaping the medico–legal arena. While conventional wisdom has it that patient safety is ...

OBJECTIVE To describe possible causes of delivery-related severe asphyxia due to malpractice. DESIGN AND SETTING A nationwide descriptive study in Sweden. POPULATION All women asking for financial compensation because of suspected medical malpractice in connection with childbirth during 1990-2005. METHOD We included infants with a gestational age of >or=33 completed gestational weeks, a p...

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...

BACKGROUND Surgical never events are being used increasingly as quality metrics in health care in the United States. However, little is known about their costs to the health care system, the outcomes of patients, or the characteristics of the providers involved. We designed a study to describe the number and magnitude of paid malpractice claims for surgical never events, as well as associated p...

According to the prevailing discourse in health policy circles, America's medical system is in the grips of two "crises": one of health care spending and one of medical malpractice liability. Although this crisis mentality may result in part from uncritical acceptance of interest group dogma, to the extent that a crisis is in fact widely perceived, it has the quality of a selffulfilling prophes...

BACKGROUND Few investigations have addressed malpractice litigation after thyroid surgery. The purpose of this medico-legal review was to provide a more comprehensive picture of medico-legal trends in thyroid surgery. METHODS Reviewed were all expert opinions on claims of malpractice after thyroid surgery, commissioned between 1995 and 2010 at 1 tertiary center, and their corresponding verdic...

As a result of rapidly rising medical malpractice insurance premiums, reduced availability of coverage, and financially distressed liability insurers, many states have passed tort reforms. This synthesis examines the medical malpractice ""crisis"" and the effect of state tort reforms. Evidence shows that caps on non-economic damages reduce the average size of malpractice awards by 20 to 30 perc...

Recent malpractice premium hikes and President Bush’s federal tort reform proposal have focused attention on medical liability costs. One frequent justification for tort reform proposals is the potential impact of liability on defensive medicine. There is however, scant and conflicting evidence on whether malpractice risk alters physician practices. In this paper, I examine whether malpractice ...