# The Impact of Exempting Medical Providers from Malpractice Liability

> **NIH NIH R01** · NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH · 2024 · $323,322

## Abstract

OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION – Project Summary/Abstract
THE IMPACT OF EXEMPTING MEDICAL PROVIDERS FROM MALPRACTICE LIABILITY
Among the most controversial aspects of the U.S. health care system are the impacts of the medical
malpractice system on patient treatments and health care costs. Defensive medicine is an unintended effect of
the liability system in which physicians order extraneous tests, procedures and other services as a result of
fears over medical liability. The debate continues, however, regarding just how large these costs really are.
Missing from the literature's attempts to resolve this debate has been a true “treatment” group of medical
encounters with respect to which there is no liability recourse at all in the event of negligent care. We aim to
further the analysis begun under R01AG049898, in which we drew on institutional features of the Military
Health System (MHS) to estimate the effects of immunizing providers from liability, facilitating an
unprecedented assessment of the full extent of defensive medicine operating in our system. We propose to
continue this research to push the literature beyond its present focus on inpatient care and to place the effects
of liability in perspective by comparing liability's effects with other approaches, especially demand-side
approaches, to regulating medical encounters. Our focus will be on investigating the impacts of certain policy
levers on age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.
The proposed continuation will address four aims. First we will explore the impact of medical liability pressure
on “high-value” outpatient care, while placing these estimates into perspective by likewise exploring effects on
the receipt of “low-value” care (drawing on high- and low-value measures currently emphasized in the medical
literature). Second, drawing on a unique feature of the MHS data, we propose to compare the effects on high-
and low-value care receipt stemming from the medical liability system – a classic supply-side approach to
regulating provider behavior – with those resulting from a classic demand-side approach to regulating the
physician-patient relationship: information disclosure to patients. Third, we will place independent emphasis on
one of the key dimensions of comparison necessary to execute the liability analysis – that is, the difference in
quality and quantity of care provided on the base through a coordinated direct-delivery system with that
provided off the base through the MHS's purchased-care system. Fourth, we will explore aspects of each of
the above aims specifically in the context of opioid use among the MHS population, while comparing the
effects of liability pressure and information disclosure on opioid use with the effects of one of the most oft-
discussed stated-based approaches to regulating opioid use: Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10843810
- **Project number:** 5R01AG049898-08
- **Recipient organization:** NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
- **Principal Investigator:** MICHAEL D. FRAKES
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $323,322
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2015-06-15 → 2027-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10843810

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10843810, The Impact of Exempting Medical Providers from Malpractice Liability (5R01AG049898-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10843810. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*