The Impact of Malpractice Risk on the Use of Obstetrics Procedures

Beomsoo Kim ()

The Journal of Legal Studies, 2007, vol. 36, issue S2, S79-S119

Abstract: Recent malpractice premium hikes and federal tort reform proposals have focused attention on medical liability costs. One frequent justification for tort reform proposals is the potential impact of liability on defensive medicine. There is, however, scant and conflicting evidence on whether malpractice risk alters physician practices. In this paper, I examine whether malpractice risk alters the procedure choices of obstetricians, who face one of the highest rates of malpractice lawsuits among medical specialties. By focusing on obstetricians, I can observe the impact of malpractice risk on the use of procedures such as cesarean sections, prenatal care visits, diagnostic tests, and so on. Because the measured malpractice risk may signal something unobserved about physician quality or practice style, I use malpractice claims against doctors with specialties other than obstetrics and gynecology (ob-gyn) as an instrument for ob-gyn claims. I find that cesarean section rates and most other measures of physician behavior are not sensitive to medical malpractice risk. (c) 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/520069 link to full text (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

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:ucp:jlstud:v:36:y:2007:i:s2:p:s79-s119

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Legal Studies from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().