Background
The 2004 July/August Issue of Health Affairs (23;:4)dedicated a large portion of the volume to medical liability, presenting a variety of articles looking at different angles of the issue, including:
- Iglehart J, The Malpractice Morass: Symbol of Societal Conflict, 7-8.
- Prologue: The Medical Malpractice Crisis, 9.
- Sage W, The Forgotten Third: Liability Insurance and the Medical Malpractice Crisis, 10-21.
- Liebman C, Hyman C, A Mediation Skills Model to Manage Disclosure of Errors and Adverse Events to Patients, 22-32.
- Struve C, Improving the Medical Malpractice Litigation Process, 33-41.
- Mello M, Studdert D, et al., Caring for Patients in a Malpractice Crisis: Physician Satisfaction and Quality of Care, 42-53.
- Studdert D, Yang Y, et al., Are Damages Caps Regressive? A Study of Malpractice Verdicts in California, 54-67.
Golann, D. Dropped Medical Malpractice Claims: Their Surprising Frequency, Apparent Causes, And Potential Remedies. Health Affairs, 30:7:1343-1350, July 2011. This article addresses the issues of malpractice cases that are abandoned and ways to improve exchange of information between plaintiffs and hospitals and insurers.
Mello M, Chandra A. National Costs of the Medical Liability System. Health Affairs, 29:9:1569-1577, Sept 2010. This article estimates the costs for each component of the medical malpractice system, and the discusses the reliability of these estimates.
Mello M, Hemenway D, Medical Malpractice as an Epidemiological Problem, Social Science & Medicine, July 2004, 59(1): 39-46.Using a familiar analogy from epidemiology—the problem of false positives in screening tests for rare diseases—and data from two large studies of medical injuries and malpractice claims in the United States, this paper presents an argument that the standard interpretation overlooks a complexity in the data on medical malpractice lawsuits.
Rosman B, Medical Malpractice in Crisis: Health Care Policy Options, Council on Health Care & Economics and Policy, March 2003.This background paper reviews some of the history and economic cycles leading to past medical malpractice crises, discusses reasons for the current problem, and includes an analysis of caps, tort reform, and some alternatives to legislative reforms.
Sage W and Kersh R, June 2006. “Medical Malpractice and the U.S. Health Care System”, Cambridge University Press: New York.
Sloan F, Chepki L, 2006. “Medical Malpractice”, The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. An overview of the malpractice crises in the past three decades, causes, and potential kinds of reform. This book compiles research and evidence from experts in the field on the issues of medical malpractice in the context of larger health policy issues today.
Patient Safety/Quality of Care
Health Affairs, “Medical Malpractice & Errors” Issue, September 2010, 29(9).
- Thomas William, Low Costs of Defensive Medicine, Small Savings from Tort Reform, 1578-1584
- Semel, Marcus. Adopting A Surgical Cafety Checklist Could Save Money and Improve The Quality of Care in U.S. Hospitals, 1593-1599
- Darrell Kirch, Changing The Culture in Medical Education to Teach Patient Safety, 1600-1604
- Wachter, Robert. Why Diagnostic Errors Don’t Get Any Respect—And What Can Be Done About Them, 1605-1610
- Mastroianni, Anna. The Flaws in State ‘Apology’ and ‘Disclosure’ Laws Dilute Their Intended Impact on Malpractice Suits, 1611-1619.
Alper E, Wachter R, Medical Malpractice and Patient Safety: Tear Down That Wall! Academic Medicine, 86:3:282-284, 2011. This article looks at the safeguarding of information from malpractice cases, and the potential for this information to be used in training of future providers.
Baicker K, Fisher E, Chandra A. Malpractice Liability Costs and the Practice of Medicine in the Medicare Program. Health Affairs, 26:3:841-852, May 2007. This study looks as how increases in malpractice premiums between 200 and 2003 affected spending in Medicare.
Bovbjerg R, Will the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Address the Problems Associated with Medical Malpractice? Urban Institute, August 2010. This brief describes provisions of PPACA relevant to problems of medical injury and liability.
Brennan T, Mello M, Patient Safety and Medical Malpractice: A Case Study, Annals of Internal Medicine, August 2003, 139(4): 267-273.The authors explore the malpractice debate through the lens of patient safety by profiling a medical case. They propose changes in current dispute resolution practices and the possible effects on patient safety and quality of care.
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, Health Care at the Crossroads: Strategies for Improving the Medical Liability System and Preventing Patient Injury, February 2005.This paper reviews suggestions on both a micro (physician-patient interactions) and macro level (national legislative proposals) to help minimize the number of medical malpractice lawsuits and examines ways in which to prevent patient injury and protect their rights.
Lakdawalla, D and Seabury S, The Welfare Effects of Medical Malpractice Liability, Rand Corporation and the National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2009. Study looking at the impact of malpractice liability on medical costs, mortality, and social welfare.
Langel Stephen. Averting Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: Effective Medicine—Or Inadequate Cure? Health Affairs, 29:9:1565-1568, Sept 2010. This article looks at seven different programs that will demonstrate medical malpractice reform under new grants from the federal government.
Mangalmurti SS, Murtagh L, Mello MM. Medical malpractice liability in the age of electronic health records. New England Journal of Medicine, 363:21:2060-2067, Nov 2010.
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Addressing the New Health Care Crisis: Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Health Care, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, March 2003.This report, prepared by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, discusses the current increase in medical malpractice insurance premiums, its effects on physicians and insurance companies, and highlights states that have implemented limits on non-economic damages in malpractice lawsuits.
Sage W, Putting the Patient in Patient Safety: Linking Patient Complaints and Malpractice Risk, Journal of the American Medical Association, June 2002, 287(22): 3003-3005.This paper discusses how to decrease the malpractice claims and negative feedback physicians are getting. It presents suggestions to address what some consider the root of the problem, namely, an increase in medical errors and malpractice claims.
Schoenbaum S, Bovbjerg R, Malpractice Reform Must Include Steps to Prevent Medical Injury, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2004, 140(1): 51-53. This paper discusses the relationship between the malpractice system and patient safety efforts.
Yang, Tony, Mello Michelle, Relationship Between Malpractice Litigation Pressure and Rates of Cesarean Section and Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Section, Medical Care, 47:2:234-242, February 2009.
Insurance
Allen K, Medical Malpractice: Implications of Rising Premiums on Access to Health Care, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) Report to Congressional Requesters, August 2003.GAO examined how health care provider responses to rising malpractice premiums have affected access to health care, whether physicians practice defensive medicine, and how growth in malpractice premiums and claims payments compares across states with varying tort reform laws.
Beider P, Hagen S, Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice, Congressional Budget Office Economic & Budget Issue Brief, January 2004.This brief examines the available evidence on state activities related to reducing malpractice litigation and some possible causes for the rise in malpractice premiums.
Hillman R, Medical Malpractice Insurance: Multiple Factors Have Contributed to Increased Premium Rates, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), Report to Congressional Requesters, June 2003.GAO analyst describes the extent of increases in medical malpractice insurance rates, analyzes factors that contributed to those increases, and identifies changes in the medical malpractice insurance market that might make the current period of rising premium rates different from past cycles of growth.
States and Tort Reform
Carrier E, Reschovsky J et al, Physicians’ Fears Of Malpractice Lawsuits Are Not Assuaged By Tort Reforms, Health Affairs, 29:9:1585-1592, Sept 2010. This study looks at physicians concerns with malpractice consequences across states with different tort reforms and sees whether reform may impact the practice of “defensive medicine”
Elliot C, The Effects of Tort Reform: Evidence from the States, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), June 2004.This CBO paper reviews the major recent studies that evaluate state-level tort reforms and assesses the relevance of that research for evaluating similar proposals at the federal level
Hall M, Agrawal G, The Impact of State Managed Care Liability Statutes, Health Affairs, September/October 2003, 22(5): 138-145.This study evaluates the impact of state statutes on liability exposure and litigation activity and the potential effects of federal legislation that caps the amount of damages from malpractice lawsuits.
Kessler, D. Evaluating the Medical Malpractice System and Options for Reform. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 25:2:93-110, March 2011. This article examines different studies and possible reform options to improve the effectiveness of the US medical malpractice system.
Mellow, M and Kachalia A. Evaluation of Options for Medical Malpractice System Reform, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), April 2010.
Pace N, Zakaras L, et al., Capping Non-Economic Awards in Medical Malpractice Trials: California Jury Verdicts under MICRA, Research and Development Corporation (RAND), October 2004.This publication assesses the impact of MICRA’s (California’s 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act) limits on plaintiffs’ awards and attorneys’ fees on final judgments in medical malpractice cases.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s The Synthesis Project, Medical Malpractice: Impact of the Crisis and Effect of State Tort Reforms, Issue 10 May 2006.
Sage, William M. and Hyman, David A., Do Health Reform and Malpractice Reform Fit Together? (March 14, 2011). U of Texas Law, Law and Econ Research Paper No. 203; Illinois Program in Law, Behavior and Social Science Paper No. LBSS11-13.