Governmental studies on medical malpractice: the implications of rising premiums for healthcare and the allocation of health resources.
The United States may or may not be facing a "malpractice crisis" which can result in a loss of quality of medical care in certain specialties by virtue of non-performance or the exiting of certain physicians from certain high-risk specialties due to increases in premiums. Various studies have been performed by various governmental agencies on a federal level in the United States. The Department of Legal Medicine, part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, began collecting veteran's affairs medical malpractice claims data and extracting information from the analysis from medical records and associated documents. During the 1993 fiscal year, 801 medical malpractice claims were filed against the Department of Veteran's Affairs. The Department of Veteran's Affairs had approximately 125,000 hospital discharges and 26 million outpatient visits during the same time period. The rate of claims per hospital discharge was less than 1/ 1000 hospital patient discharges (.864/1000). Subsequent to that report, several other reports have been issued including a report on medical malpractice insurance generated by the General Accounting Office in 2003, some ten years later. More recently, a report of medical malpractice having implications on rising premiums on and access to health care generated by the General Accounting Office was released in August of 2003. This paper will demonstrate areas of concern with regard to the area of medical malpractice as well as incidence of medical malpractice and claims upon the insurance industry, medical specialties and the impact upon the community generally in the United States.
Hoffman
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AC
American College of Legal Medicine, Chicago, IL USA.
D035082:Federal Government; D005249:Fees and Charges / Q000639:trends*; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics*; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs