| In this dissertation, I estimate the effect of medical malpractice on health care delivery in the United States. In particular, I focus on the effect of medical malpractice on physician behavior and health outcomes of the patients. The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) has been combined with the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). Malpractice claims frequency and severity are used as measures of medical malpractice risk in each state.;While estimating defensive medicine in obstetrics, physician behavior is modeled as a fixed effects logit. Results suggest that a higher degree of malpractice risk increases the probability of C-section delivery. Overall, there is no evidence of defensive medicine. In fact, marginal benefit of additional resource use is higher than its marginal cost.;While analyzing the effect of medical malpractice on physician behavior and health outcomes for AMI patients, I find 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 a reduction in health expenditure and no increase in mortality. Therefore, I find no evidence of defensive medicine for AMI patients.;While analyzing the effect of medical malpractice risk on health outcomes for patients suffering from for five common medical conditions, I find that an increase in claims frequency improves mortality for patients suffering from stroke, hip fracture, pneumonia, or CHF. Medical malpractice does not affect mortality for patients suffering from GI hemorrhage. Severity of medical condition of the patient is an important factor in determining the effect of medical malpractice on health outcomes.;The policy implications are that medical malpractice serves its purpose as a deterrent to less than optimal care. Overall, we find that medical malpractice improves health outcomes for a majority of medical conditions. Reducing medical malpractice risk may reduce this benefit. This means that reforms aimed at reducing medical malpractice risk faced by physicians and hospitals could lead to a decline in the quality of care provided. |
