This article evaluates the effects of medical malpractice reform on claiming, malpractice premiums, physician supply, and defensive medicine. We conclude that damage caps materially reduce claim frequency, payouts per claim, and total payouts. The effects of damage caps on malpractice premiums, physician supply, and defensive medicine are more modest. It is difficult to quantify the impact of reforms other than damage caps—partly because reforms are typically adopted as a package deal, and partly because of the limitations of the available data. We close by identifying three areas that would benefit from more research.

中文翻译：

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医疗事故改革的影响

本文评估了医疗事故改革对索赔、医疗事故保险费、医生供应和防御性医疗的影响。我们得出的结论是，损害赔偿上限大大降低了索赔频率、每次索赔的赔付和总赔付。损害上限对医疗事故保险费、医生供应和防御性药物的影响较为温和。除了损害上限之外，很难量化改革的影响——部分原因是改革通常作为一揽子交易采用，部分原因是可用数据的局限性。最后，我们确定了三个可以从更多研究中受益的领域。