Download or read book The Resolution of Medical Malpractice Claims Research Results and Policy Implications written by Patricia Munch Danzon and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1970s, both the frequency of medical malpractice claims and the dollar awards to successful plaintiffs rose at unprecedented rates. In 1974-1975, the malpractice insurance crisis erupted. By the end of 1976, most state legislatures had enacted laws to deal with the perceived causes of the crisis. With only scant empirical evidence on the actual operation of the tort system and likely effects of any changes, however, legislators have had to rely on anecdote, subjective reasoning, and conventional wisdom. The research summarized in this report aims at rectifying that deficiency. It analyzes two computerized files on over 6,000 closed claims, using a computerized model of the bargaining behavior through which claims are resolved. It produced useful evidence on the actual operation of the malpractice system, including changes made during the crisis, and analytic tools that can be applied to understand dispute resolution in other contexts.
Download or read book Improving Diagnosis in Health Care written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-12-29 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.
Download or read book Medical Malpractice written by Patricia Munch Danzon and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How often are patients seriously injured through faulty medical care? And what proportion of these people receive compensation for their injuries and suffering? This is the first book that tries to answer these questions in a careful, scholarly way. Among its important findings is that at most one in ten patients injured through medical negligence receives compensation through the malpractice system. The focus of public attention has been on the rising cost to physicians of malpractice insurance. Although Patricia Danzon analyzes this question thoroughly, her view is much broader, encompassing the malpractice system itself--the legal process, the liability insurance markets, and the feedback to health care. As an economist, she is concerned with the efficiency or cost-effectiveness of the system from the point of view of its three social purposes: deterrence of medical negligence, compensation of injured patients, and the spreading of risk. To provide evidence of the operation of the system in practice, to distinguish fact from allegation, and to evaluate proposals for reform, she has undertaken a detailed empirical analysis of malpractice claims and insurance markets. It is a major contribution to our understanding of how the system works in practice and how it might be improved.
Download or read book How Liability Law Affects Medical Productivity written by Daniel P. Kessler and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous research suggests that "direct" reforms to the liability system -- reforms designed to reduce the level of compensation to potential claimants -- reduce medical expenditures without important consequences for patient health outcomes. We extend this research by identifying the mechanisms through which reforms affect the behavior of health care providers. Although we find that direct reforms improve medical productivity primarily by reducing malpractice claims rates and compensation conditional on a claim, our results suggest that other policies that reduce the time spent and the amount of conflict involved in defending against a claim can also reduce defensive practices substantially. In addition, we find that "malpractice pressure" has a larger impact on diagnostic rather than therapeutic treatment decisions. Our results provide an empirical foundation for simulating the effects of untried malpractice reforms on health care costs and outcomes, based on their predicted effects on the malpractice pressure facing medical providers
Download or read book Policy Limits Payouts and Blood Money written by Charles Silver and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In prior research, we found that policy limits in Texas medical malpractice (“med mal”) cases often served as de facto caps on recoveries in both tried and settled cases. We also found that physicians faced little personal exposure on malpractice claims. Out-of-pocket payments (OOPPs) by physicians were rare and usually small. Physicians could reduce their personal exposure to near zero by carrying $1 million in primary coverage -- a standard amount in many states. Finally, the real amount of insurance coverage purchased by physicians with paid claims declined substantially over 1988-1999, consistent with physicians learning over time how low the OOPP risk was and deciding to carry less coverage.We now revisit our findings, using an extended dataset (1988-2005) that lets us study policies purchased through 2003, which encompasses the period during which Texas experienced a med mal insurance crisis (1999-2003) and adopted tort reform to limit med mal lawsuits (2003). Our updated findings are largely consistent with our original findings: policy limits continue to cap recoveries; physicians still rarely make OOPPs; most OOPPs are modest; and real policy limits continue to shrink. We also find evidence that, at the end of the extended period, physicians often purchased less coverage (i.e., policies with limits of $100,000-$200,000 instead of $500,000-$1 million).Our findings have important policy implications. If physicians carry less real coverage over time, lawsuits should become less profitable. This will make it harder for injured patients to find plaintiffs' lawyers willing to handle their cases; shift the cost of medical injuries away from providers and toward patients and first-party health insurers; weaken liability insurers' incentives to monitor providers; and diminish the (already modest) deterrent effect of tort law. If these findings are representative, they may help explain the nationwide decline in med mal claiming that we document elsewhere. Finally, our findings raise questions about the explanatory power of Baker's “blood money” norm, at least for med mal litigation.
Download or read book The Frequency and Severity of Medical Malpractice Claims written by Patricia Munch Danzon and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The frequency and severity of medical malpractice claims increased dramatically in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In response to the malpractice crisis, many states enacted changes in tort law applicable to medical practitioners. This report presents some empirical evidence on the contribution of various factors to the diversity in the frequency and severity of claims across states and over time. Section II provides an overview of countrywide trends in claims for different lines of liability insurance and differences among states in malpractice litigation. Section III presents a theoretical model of the frequency and severity of medical malpractice claims. Section IV describes the data and methodological issues. Section V reports the empirical analysis of frequency of claims per capita, average severity per claim, and average claim cost per capita. Section VI analyzes the determinants of the post-1975 tort reforms. Section VII summarizes the findings and policy implications.
Download or read book Report of the Task Force on Medical Liability and Malpractice written by United States. Department of Health and Human Services. Task Force on Medical Liability and Malpractice and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Contingent Fees for Personal Injury Litigation written by Patricia Munch Danzon and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plaintiff attorneys on personal injury cases are typically paid a contingent fee. Contingent fees are widely believed to induce excessive litigation and are increasingly regulated. A theoretical analysis of contingent and hourly wage contracts shows that, with competition for cases, attorneys paid a contingent fee will devote the amount of effort that would be chosen by fully informed, risk-neutral plaintiffs paying by the hour: the net value of the claim to the plaintiff will be maximized. However, risk-averse plaintiffs will underinvest in the number of suits and amount spent per case, if attorneys must be paid by the hour. Estimates of the effects of limits on contingent fees are presented. If the benchmark of the optimum expenditure on litigation is that which would be chosen by fully informed, risk-neutral plaintiffs, the unconstrained contingent fee is likely to induce the closest approximation to this ideal.
Download or read book Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Making Healthcare Safe written by Lucian L. Leape and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-28 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique and engaging open access title provides a compelling and ground-breaking account of the patient safety movement in the United States, told from the perspective of one of its most prominent leaders, and arguably the movement’s founder, Lucian L. Leape, MD. Covering the growth of the field from the late 1980s to 2015, Dr. Leape details the developments, actors, organizations, research, and policy-making activities that marked the evolution and major advances of patient safety in this time span. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, this book not only comprehensively details how and why human and systems errors too often occur in the process of providing health care, it also promotes an in-depth understanding of the principles and practices of patient safety, including how they were influenced by today’s modern safety sciences and systems theory and design. Indeed, the book emphasizes how the growing awareness of systems-design thinking and the self-education and commitment to improving patient safety, by not only Dr. Leape but a wide range of other clinicians and health executives from both the private and public sectors, all converged to drive forward the patient safety movement in the US. Making Healthcare Safe is divided into four parts: I. In the Beginning describes the research and theory that defined patient safety and the early initiatives to enhance it. II. Institutional Responses tells the stories of the efforts of the major organizations that began to apply the new concepts and make patient safety a reality. Most of these stories have not been previously told, so this account becomes their histories as well. III. Getting to Work provides in-depth analyses of four key issues that cut across disciplinary lines impacting patient safety which required special attention. IV. Creating a Culture of Safety looks to the future, marshalling the best thinking about what it will take to achieve the safe care we all deserve. Captivatingly written with an “insider’s” tone and a major contribution to the clinical literature, this title will be of immense value to health care professionals, to students in a range of academic disciplines, to medical trainees, to health administrators, to policymakers and even to lay readers with an interest in patient safety and in the critical quest to create safe care.
Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Download or read book Medical Care Law written by Edward P. Richards and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 1999 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A legal reference for practicing physicians is a necessary adjunct to their professional practice library in today's highly regulated and litigious world. Medical Care Law was written to help practicing physicians avoid legal conflicts, and to prevent legal problems rather than treat them. Written with the practicing physician in mind, this book is also valuable to a variety of health professionals, including physician executives, medical directors, nurse administrators, advanced practice nurses, case managers, risk managers, legal nurse consultants, health care administrators, public health professionals, and attorneys. In addition To The traditional legal issues affecting medical practitioners, Medical Care Law addresses the legal pitfalls in today's volatile health care landscape, including managed care, health care fraud and abuse, compliance plans, and working with non-physician providers.
Download or read book Current Catalog written by National Library of Medicine (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 1712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.
Download or read book Medical Malpractice Litigation written by Bernard S. Black and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Drawing on an unusually rich trove of data, the authors have refuted more politically convenient myths in one book than most academics do in a lifetime." —Nicholas Bagley, professor of law, University of Michigan Law School "Synthesizing decades of their own and others’ research on medical liability, the authors unravel what we know and don’t know about our medical malpractice system, why neither patients nor doctors are being rightly served, and what economics can teach us about the path forward." —Anupam B. Jena, Harvard Medical School Over the past 50 years, the United States experienced three major medical malpractice crises, each marked by dramatic increases in the cost of malpractice liability insurance. These crises fostered a vigorous politicized debate about the causes of the premium spikes, and the impact on access to care and defensive medicine. State legislatures responded to the premium spikes by enacting damages caps on non-economic, punitive, or total damages and Congress has periodically debated the merits of a federal cap on damages. However, the intense political debate has been marked by a shortage of evidence, as well as misstatements and overclaiming. The public is confused about answers to some basic questions. What caused the premium spikes? What effect did tort reform actually have? Did tort reform reduce frivolous litigation? Did tort reform actually improve access to health care or reduce defensive medicine? Both sides in the debate have strong opinions about these matters, but their positions are mostly talking points or are based on anecdotes. Medical Malpractice Litigation provides factual answers to these and other questions about the performance of the med mal system. The authors, all experts in the field and from across the political spectrum, provide an accessible, fact-based response to the questions ordinary Americans and policymakers have about the performance of the med mal litigation system.
Download or read book Medical Malpractice written by Frank A. Sloan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive analysis of medical malpractice from legal, medical, economic, and insurance perspectives that considers why past efforts at reform have not worked and offers recommendations for realistic, achievable policy changes. Most experts would agree that the current medical malpractice system in the United States does not work effectively either to compensate victims fairly or prevent injuries caused by medical errors. Policy responses to a series of medical malpractice crises have not resulted in effective reform and have not altered the fundamental incentives of the stakeholders. In Medical Malpractice, economist Frank Sloan and lawyer Lindsey Chepke examine the U.S. medical malpractice process from legal, medical, economic, and insurance perspectives, analyze past efforts at reform, and offer realistic, achievable policy recommendations. They review the considerable empirical evidence in a balanced fashion and assess objectively what works in the current system and what does not. Sloan and Chepke argue that the complexity of medical malpractice stems largely from the interaction of the four discrete markets that determine outcomes—legal, medical malpractice insurance, medical care, and government activity. After describing what the evidence shows about the functioning of medical malpractice, types of defensive medicine, and the effects of past reforms, they examine such topics as scheduling damages as an alternative to flat caps, jury behavior, health courts, incentives to prevent medical errors, insurance regulation, reinsurance, no-fault insurance, and suggestions for future reforms. Medical Malpractice is the most comprehensive treatment of malpractice available, integrating findings from several different areas of research and describing them accessibly in nontechnical language. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in medical malpractice.
Download or read book Insuring Medical Malpractice written by Frank A. Sloan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-09-26 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cost of malpractice insurance to physicians has been increasing in recent years, as has the threat to physicians of being sued. This book describes and analyzes the workings of the market for physicians' liability insurance. The authors use their own data and other sources to study questions such as: Is the market for medical malpractice insurance competitive? Has the profitability of medical malpractice insurance been excessive? Why do malpractice insurers demand reinsurance? What effect has insurance regulation had on premiums? And it explores what experience rating is and how it is done.
Download or read book The Belmont Report written by United States. National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
