Defensive Medicine: Evidence from Military Immunity

Michael D. Frakes and Jonathan Gruber

No 24846, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We estimate the extent of defensive medicine by physicians, embracing the no-liability counterfactual made possible by the structure of liability rules in the Military Heath System. Active-duty patients seeking treatment from military facilities cannot sue for harms resulting from negligent care, while protections are provided to dependents treated at military facilities and to all patients—active-duty or not—that receive care from civilian facilities. Drawing on this variation and exploiting exogenous shocks to care location choices stemming from base-hospital closures, we find suggestive evidence that liability immunity reduces inpatient spending by 5% with no measurable negative effect on patient outcomes.

JEL-codes: I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Note: AG EH LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published as Michael Frakes & Jonathan Gruber, 2019. "Defensive Medicine: Evidence from Military Immunity," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, vol 11(3), pages 197-231.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24846.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24846

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w24846

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().