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This study uses a large malpractice database from Florida to assess the concentration of losses among physicians, predictability of claims experience, characteristics of physicians with favorable vs unfavorable experience, and effects of claims experience on physicians' practice decisions and on actions taken by the state's licensing board. Most payments by insurers involved a comparatively small number of physicians. Physicians with relatively prestigious credentials had no better, and on some indicators, worse claims experience. If anything, physicians with adverse claims experience were less likely to make subsequent changes in their practice, such as quitting practice or moving to another state. Physicians with very poor claims histories were more likely to have complaints filed against them with the Florida licensing board, but the sanctions against physicians with either poor or excellent histories were not severe. Physicians with adverse claims experience from incidents that arose between 1975 and 1980 had appreciably worse claims experience from incidents that arose during 1981 to 1983. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the proposed reduction of provisions for end-of-life care as a means for decreasing health care expenditures. Role of the preferences of patients and their families; Difficulties in judging the value of end-of-life care in individual cases; Role of health insurance in providing payment for end-of-life care.

Objective: To examine the relationship between prior physician malpractice experience and patients' satisfaction with care., Design: Women were interviewed using a questionnaire that contained structured and open-ended questions., Participants: Mothers of all stillborn infants, infant deaths, and a random sampling of viable infants drawn from 1987 Florida Vital Statistics were sorted into four groups based on the malpractice claims experience of their obstetricians between 1983 and 1986. Interviews were completed with 963 of 1536 women, most by telephone, 53 by in-person interview., Main Outcome Measures: Mothers' responses to closed-ended and open-ended questions about their perceptions of the care they received during their pregnancy, labor, and delivery., Results: Even though none of the women actually filed a claim, a consistent pattern of differences emerged when comparing women's perceptions of care received. Patients seeing physicians with the most frequent numbers of claims but without high payments were significantly more likely to complain that they felt rushed, never received explanations for tests, and were ignored. In response to the open-ended question, "What part of your care were you least satisfied with?" women seeing physicians in the High Frequency malpractice risk group offered twice as many complaints as those seeing physicians who had never been sued. Problems with physician-patient communication were the most commonly offered complaints., Conclusion: Physicians who have been sued frequently are more often the objects of complaints about the interpersonal care they provide even by their patients who do not sue.

Objective: To determine the relationship between prior malpractice claims experience and the quality of clinical obstetric care., Design: Historical cohort study of obstetricians, classified by their prior malpractice claims experience, with blinded review of medical records from their practices 5 to 10 years later., Setting: Florida obstetricians who lost, settled, or defended malpractice claims between 1977 and 1983 and who were still practicing obstetrics in 1987., Main Outcome Measures: Objective and subjective assessment of quality of clinical care of patients attended by obstetricians with different histories of malpractice claims., Results: No differences were found in any of the objective or subjective measures of the quality of clinical care provided to patients of obstetricians who were classified into one of four groups according to their prior claims history., Conclusions: No relationship was found between prior malpractice claims experience and the technical quality of practice by Florida obstetricians. Strategies that attempt to identify physicians at risk for future clinical errors by using data on prior malpractice claims (such as the National Practitioner Data Bank) may be misjudging the likelihood that substandard clinical care will be provided by physicians with prior claims.

Objective: To identify self-reported reasons that prompt families to file malpractice claims following perinatal injuries., Design: Families were interviewed by telephone using a questionnaire that contained structured and open-ended questions., Participants: Mothers of infants who had experienced permanent injuries or deaths and had closed malpractice claims in Florida between 1986 and August 1989 were interviewed. Questionnaires were completed by 127 (35%) of a total of 368 such families., Outcome Measures: Reasons prompting families to file and families' descriptions of medical events, advice from acquaintances, and the quality of physician-family communication., Results: Families volunteered numerous reasons for filing: advised by knowledgeable acquaintances (33% of respondents), recognized cover-up (24%), needed money (24%), recognized that their child would have no future (23%), needed information (20%), and decided to seek revenge or protect others from harm (19%). Over one third of all families indicated that they were told by medical personnel prior to filing that the care provided had caused their children's injuries. Families expressed dissatisfaction with physician-patient communication. Families believed that physicians would not listen (13% of sample), would not talk openly (32%), attempted to mislead them (48%), or did not warn about long-term neurodevelopmental problems (70%)., Conclusion: Families give many reasons for filing a claim. Obtaining money may not be the only goal for some families who file suit.

During the 1970s, expenditure for physicians' services rose by $12.7 billion (in 1979 dollars), but only about one fifty of this amount could be attributed to an increase in number of physicians relative to population. Other factors, chiefly demographic changes and greater insurance coverage, were responsible for the bulk of higher expenditures. Despite the growth in number of physicians, real income of individual physicians remained virtually constant. Maintenance of real income was not, however, appreciably dependent on physicians inducing an unwarranted demand for their services. We predict that as the physician supply expands by 25% to 35% during the 1980s, real payments to physicians will increase by some $14 to $20 billion (1979) dollars. As in the past decade, however, only about one fifth of the amount will be attributable to an increase in physician supply. Gross income of individual physicians is likely to ri se by 10% to 15% (in 1979 dollars) over the decade, but net income probably will show little increase or may even fall slightly.

A competitive marketplace potentially creates new pressures for teaching hospitals. To assess possible trends in teaching hospitals' caseload, we studied surgical utilization in 1972 and 1981 using two national data sets. The percentage of total patients hospitalized for surgery increased in teaching hospitals between 1972 and 1981. Nonteaching hospitals adopted several new procedures, such as hip arthroplasty. However, increased volume attributable to the spread of procedures to additional hospitals was small when compared with volume increases experienced by hospitals that performed these procedures in 1972. Teaching hospitals' caseloads grew for well-established surgical procedures such as cholecystectomy, delivery, and mastectomy and for newer, high-technology procedures such as hip arthroplasty and coronary artery surgery. Overall surgical case complexity was relatively high in teaching hospitals in 1972, and the disparity with nonteaching hospitals increased during the decade. Distribution of surgical patients by payment source varied appreciably among surgical procedures, but not among hospitals by teaching status. Teaching hospitals were successful in attracting patients from 1972 to 1981; however, several new pressures are emerging that should be watched.