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Medical Liability: Impact on Hospital and Physician Costs Extends Beyond Insurance

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Report Type Reports and Testimonies
Report Date Sept. 29, 1995
Report No. AIMD-95-169
Subject
Summary:

As Congress considers proposals to reduce to tort liability in the health care industry, little consensus exists on the extent to which medical liability-related spending boosts hospital and physician expenditures, a central issue in the debate over health care reform. GAO found that hospitals and physicians incur a variety of medical liability costs. Studies attempting to measure such costs have focused on the cost of purchased malpractice insurance, which is readily quantifiable because of state reporting requirements. Other hospital and physician liability costs, however, are impractical and methodologically difficult to measure with any precision. Such costs include defensive medicine, liability-related administrative expenses, and medical device and drug company's liability expenses that are passed on to hospitals and doctors in the price of products. However, a broader understanding of such costs and their implications is useful to the ongoing medical liability reform debate.

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