Effect of Medical Malpractice on Resource Use and Mortality of AMI Patients

We estimate the effect of medical malpractice on physician behavior and health outcomes of AMI patients. The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) has been combined with the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). Frequency of paid claims and claims severity are used as measures of medical malpractice risk in each state. Results suggest that an increase in medical malpractice risk leads to a reduction in resource use and improvement in health outcome for patients with less severe medical conditions. For patients with more severe medical conditions, medical malpractice is associated with an improvement in mortality. Therefore, we find no evidence that the costs of defensive medicine for most AMI patients are escalating. Threat of a malpractice lawsuit lowers the mortality rate of AMI patients, contradicting the widely held view that defensive medicine has no positive effect on health status of patients.