Hospital Malpractice Expenses (05/02/05)

The cost of medical malpractice insurance has been widely attributed as one of the principal factors contributing to rising hospital costs. To this end, the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4), with the cooperation of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, began to collect information on the hospitals’ expenses of meeting their malpractice exposure during fiscal year 2004 (FY04). This Research Brief reports the hospital revenue consumed by malpractice insurance expenses and establishes a baseline to track changes in the amount of hospital malpractice expenses in the future.