very practice treating Medicare patients is subject to an audit by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (cms), formerly known as the Health Care Financing Administration (hcfa). In the year  the federal government won or negotiated more than $. billion in judgments, settlements, and administrative impositions in health care fraud cases and proceedings; federal prosecutors filed ...

This article analyzes tort liability litigation costs using the Texas Department of Insurance Commercial Liability Insurance Closed Claim database for the years 1988–2004. Insurer costs to defend claims in which a suit was filed average $35,000 per claim in 2004$, which corresponds to a share of 0.18 of total expenditures. Claims with higher stakes and complexity lead to greater reliance on out...