AMA refutes medical liability study

The American Medical Association (AMA) on May 8 issued a statement to refute the "flawed analysis" in a study published in the May/June issue of Health Affairs. The study's authors, a law professor and two law students, contended that perceptions of a liability crisis are overblown based on data from 1970-2000. The AMA, however, says the data are irrelevent because they end "prior to the current medical liability crisis."

The study authors analyzed data from AMA surveys of self-employed physicians from 1970 to 2000 and concluded that other expenses apart from malpractice premiums "represented a much greater share of total practice expenses in 1970 yet increased rapidly until 1996 and moderately thereafter, while spending on premiums fell during 1986-2000," according to the study abstract.

The AMA survey data show that a national average of malpractice premiums were lower in 2000 than in 1986, with similar trends in regional and specialty averages, according to the study. Although premiums rose from 1996 to 2000, practice revenue declined nationally and for specialties. "It was revenue decline and increases in nonpremium expenses, not premium increases, that account for the overwhelming share of falling income," the authors wrote.

The authors used the AMA survey data, they reported, because "what physicians pay for premiums differs from advertised rates," including those reported by Medical Liability Monitor.  

Rebecca J. Patchin, MD, a board member of the AMA, said in the May 8 press release that "[d]ata from Medical Liability Monitor have been accepted universally as a reliable guage of the medical liability insurance market and the premiums paid by physicians over time."

Patchin said the study "attempts to dismiss relevant premium data compiled by Medical Liability Monitor that conflict with the authors' pre-conceived notions about the medical liability crisis." 

The AMA "urges the Senate to heed the American public and vote for comprehensive medical liability reforms that preserve patients' access to their doctors," Patchin said.

Source: "Malpractice Premiums and Physicians' Income: Perceptions of a Crisis Conflict with Empirical Evidence," Health Affairs 25, no. 3 (2006): 750-758; "AMA refutes bogus medical liability study," AMA press release, May 8, 2006.