Do doctors prescribe antibiotics out of fear of malpractice?

Sebastian Panthöfer

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2022, vol. 19, issue 2, 340-381

Abstract: This paper studies whether doctors prescribe antibiotics to protect themselves against potential malpractice claims. Using data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey on a representative sample of doctor visits from 1993 to 2011, I find that doctors are significantly less likely to prescribe antibiotics following tort reforms that reduce malpractice pressure. The changing prescribing patterns appear to have no adverse effects on patient health outcomes over the same time period. Almost 100 million hospital records from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample reveal little to no effects of tort reforms on hospital stays involving conditions that can potentially be avoided through the timely use of antibiotics. Taken together, these findings suggest that malpractice pressure induces doctors to prescribe antibiotics that are medically unnecessary, thereby contributing to the rise in antibiotic resistance.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12316

Related works:
Working Paper: Do Doctors Prescribe Antibiotics Out of Fear of Malpractice? (2016)
Working Paper: Do Doctors Prescribe Antibiotics Out of Fear of Malpractice? (2016)
Working Paper: Do Doctors Prescribe Antibiotics Out of Fear of Malpractice? (2016)
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:wly:empleg:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:340-381

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Empirical Legal Studies from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().