Impact of state tort reforms on physician malpractice payments

State and federal initiatives to enact medical malpractice tort reforms lack an empirical basis for understanding how reforms might affect malpractice premiums and costs. This paper ranks each state's tort provisions, uses multivariate analysis to measure the effects of strong versus weak enactments on paid claims, and identifies tort law patterns associated with high and low claims frequency and payment levels. Our results suggest that (1) the size and number of medical malpractice payments are affected by only some tort reforms; and (2) the pattern of reforms differs between states with high versus low levels of claims or payments.