An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Settlement Payments

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Settlement Payments PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actions and defenses
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This study evaluates the impact of six different types of tort reforms on the frequency, size and number of total annual settlements in medical malpractice cases between 1991 and 1998. Previous studies have failed to correctly identify the effective dates of reforms, to account for the retroactive applicability of striking down reforms, or used highly selected samples of jury verdicts or litigated cases. I employ a new legal data set of tort reforms, which carefully evaluates effective dates as well as when certain laws were overturned. Medical malpractice data comes from the National Practitioner Data Bank, which contains more than 100,000 malpractice settlement payments in the study time frame. The data represent the universe of cases in which doctors paid a positive settlement. Thus, the present study has significant advantages over previous work for being the first study to systematically and adequately explore the impact of tort reform on settlements (in contrast to judgments). Of the six tort reforms examined, two reforms (caps on pain-and-suffering damages and limitations on joint and several liability) reduced the number of annual payments, and two reforms (caps on pain-and-suffering damages and the periodic payment reform) reduced average awards. Caps on non-economic damages had an effect on total annual payments, although the statistical significance of that effect was weak. The joint effect of enacting all six reforms was statistically significant for reducing the number of cases but not the state level average award or total payments.

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Settlement Payments

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Settlement Payments PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actions and defenses
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This study evaluates the impact of six different types of tort reforms on the frequency, size and number of total annual settlements in medical malpractice cases between 1991 and 1998. Previous studies have failed to correctly identify the effective dates of reforms, to account for the retroactive applicability of striking down reforms, or used highly selected samples of jury verdicts or litigated cases. I employ a new legal data set of tort reforms, which carefully evaluates effective dates as well as when certain laws were overturned. Medical malpractice data comes from the National Practitioner Data Bank, which contains more than 100,000 malpractice settlement payments in the study time frame. The data represent the universe of cases in which doctors paid a positive settlement. Thus, the present study has significant advantages over previous work for being the first study to systematically and adequately explore the impact of tort reform on settlements (in contrast to judgments). Of the six tort reforms examined, two reforms (caps on pain-and-suffering damages and limitations on joint and several liability) reduced the number of annual payments, and two reforms (caps on pain-and-suffering damages and the periodic payment reform) reduced average awards. Caps on non-economic damages had an effect on total annual payments, although the statistical significance of that effect was weak. The joint effect of enacting all six reforms was statistically significant for reducing the number of cases but not the state level average award or total payments.

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Payments

An Empirical Study of the Impact of Tort Reforms on Medical Malpractice Payments PDF Author: Ronen Avraham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Damages
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Impact of Legal Reforms on Medical Malpractice Costs

Impact of Legal Reforms on Medical Malpractice Costs PDF Author:
Publisher: Congress
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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An Empirical Study of the Effects of Tort Reforms on the Rate of Tort Filings

An Empirical Study of the Effects of Tort Reforms on the Rate of Tort Filings PDF Author: Han-Duck Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reform
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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The Empirical Effects of Tort Reform

The Empirical Effects of Tort Reform PDF Author: Theodore Eisenberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Tort reforms enacted in response to asserted crises date back to the 1970s and have emphasized the highly visible areas of punitive damages, medical malpractice, and products liability. Little evidence exists that reform of punitive damages affected the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages. This is consistent with the absence of evidence that punitive damages were ever out of control and in need of reform. Evidence of the effect of tort reform in the medical malpractice field is mixed. Caps on non-economic damages have reduced costs, thereby likely decreasing pressure on hospitals to improve care. Consistent evidence of effects on physician behavior and physician supply has not emerged. Tort reform has rarely sought to address the well-established problem of widespread harm caused by poor quality care. Products liability plaintiffs have had decreasing success over time. While one cannot rule out specific statutory reforms as achieving more favorable results for defendants, the national scope of plaintiffs' declining success supports an explanation based on the social construction of knowledge by well-funded industry groups.

Reply to the Effects of 'Early Offers' in Medical Malpractice Cases

Reply to the Effects of 'Early Offers' in Medical Malpractice Cases PDF Author: Joni Hersch
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This article is a Reply to the critique by Black, Hyman, and Silver (BHS) of our 2007 Journal of Legal Studies article, “An Empirical Assessment of Early Offer Reform for Medical Malpractice.” The early offer reform gives insurers the option of making an early offer that will expedite payment of claimants' economic losses and reasonable attorney fees. Using data on closed medical malpractice claims from the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), our 2007 article estimates the financial impact of this proposal by comparing the expected payments to claimants under the early offer reform to the payments under current tort rules. A central component of our calculation of expected payments is unique information on insurers' reserves associated with the claim; actual payments are reported in the TDI data for all litigated and settled cases involving payments of at least $10,000. The BHS article misrepresents fundamental aspects of our empirical analysis, including the following. BHS set out to correct our purported “false assumption” that all claims have a 1.0 probability of success, which is a problem that arises because BHS omit the probability of claimant success from the formula that is presented in our paper. BHS's error is compounded as their discussion of our paper fails to recognize that our use of reserve amounts in the analysis incorporates the insurers' estimates of the likelihood of claimant success, Indeed, they neither acknowledge our use of the insurer reserve data, nor do they use the insurer reserve information in their paper. BHS claim incorrectly that our analysis does not discount deferred payments whereas in fact it does. Our early offer analysis uses data for both litigated and settled claims, avoiding the selection bias and measurement error problems associated with BHS's extrapolation from the 2% of paid claims that are litigated to the universe of all settled and litigated claims. In addition to these and other errors in their characterization of our empirical analysis, the BHS article reflects a misunderstanding of the operation of the early offer reform, which leads them to erroneous statements regarding how the parties would behave if the early offer reform were implemented. We also provide a brief critique of the BHS two-sided version of the early offer proposal, which would not be workable and would not reduce litigation costs significantly.

Medical Malpractice Litigation

Medical Malpractice Litigation PDF Author: Bernard S. Black
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 194864780X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
"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.

Empirical Legal Analysis

Empirical Legal Analysis PDF Author: Yun-chien Chang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317952170
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
This innovative volume explores empirical legal issues around the world. While legal studies have traditionally been worked on and of letters and with a normative bent, in recent years quantitative methods have gained traction by offering a brand new perspective of understanding law. That is, legal scholars have started to crunch numbers, not letters, to tease out the effects of law on the regulated industries, citizens, or judges in reality. In this edited book, authors from leading institutions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia investigate legal issues in South Africa, Argentina, the U.S., Israel, Taiwan, and other countries. Using original data in a variety of statistical tools (from the most basic chi-square analysis to sophisticated two-stage least square regression models), contributors to this book look into the judicial behaviours in Taiwan and Israel, the determinants of constitutional judicial systems in 100 countries, and the effect of appellate court decisions on media competition. In addition, this book breaks new ground in informing important policy debates. Specifically, how long should we incarcerate criminals? Should the medical malpractice liability system be reformed? Do police reduce crime? Why is South Africa’s democratic transition viable? With solid data as evidence, this volume sheds new light on these issues from a road more and more frequently taken—what is known as "empirical legal studies/analysis." This book should be useful to students, practitioners and professors of law, economics and public policy in many countries who seek to understand their legal system from a different, and arguably more scientific, perspective.

Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice

Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Defensive medicine
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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The Medical Malpractice Myth

The Medical Malpractice Myth PDF Author: Tom Baker
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459615654
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
n January 2005, President Bush declared the medical malpractice liability system out of control.The president's speech was merely an echo of what doctors and politicians (mostly Republicans) have been saying for years - that medical malpractice premiums are skyrocketing due to an explosion in malpractice litigation. Along comes Baker, direct...