Medical Malpractice

Here's a New York Times article summarizing a paper from the New England Journal of Medicine on medical malpractice. The focus of the paper is largely on the frequency of malpractice claims against doctors in a variety of medical specialties.



One thing that the paper does not appear to address is a big issue in medical malpractice: the costs of defending claims (the "loss adjustment expense" in insurance terminology). Thus, even though, as the paper finds, most claims do not result in indemnity payments to the claimant, there are often huge legal costs expended in defending against such claims.



- Rick