Medical Malpractice: How legal liability affects medical decisions

Veronica Grembi

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: In health care, overuse and underuse of medical treatments represent equally dangerous deviations from an optimal use equilibrium and arouses concerns about possible implications for patients' health, and for the healthcare system in terms of both costs and access to medical care. Medical liability plays a dominant role among the elements that can affect these deviations. Therefore, a remarkable economic literature studies how medical decisions are influenced by different levels of liability. In particular, identifying the relation between liability and treatments selection, as well as disentangling the effect of liability from other incentives that might be in place, is a task for sound empirical research. Several studies have already tried to tackle this issue, but much more needs to be done. In the present chapter, we offer an overview of the state of the art in the study of the relation between liability and treatments selection. First, we reason on the theoretical mechanisms underpinning the relationship under investigation by presenting the main empirical predictions of the related literature. Second, we provide a comprehensive summary of the existing empirical evidence and its main weaknesses. Finally, we conclude by offering guidelines for further research.

Keywords: Medical Malpractice; Medial Liability; Treatment Selection; Defensive Medicine; Empirical Analysis; General Review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/1714.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Medical Malpractice: How Legal Liability Affects Medical Decisions (2018)
Working Paper: Medical Malpractice: How Legal Liability Affects Medical Decisions (2017)
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:yor:hectdg:17/14

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York HEDG/HERC, Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Rawlings (jane.rawlings@york.ac.uk).