Reply to LeCraw, Montanera, and Mroz on Hospitals’ Malpractice Claims and Costs

In a prior issue of Econ Journal Watch, an article by Florence LeCraw, Daniel Montanera, and Thomas Mroz criticizes methods employed in our 2018 analysis of the outcomes of implementing a communication-and-resolution program (CRP) in six Massachusetts hospitals. CRPs are a method of responding to medical injuries in which hospitals disclose adverse events to patients, give an appropriate apology, and proactively offer compensation if the injury was caused by a medical error. In this reply article we address each of LeCraw, Montanera and Mroz’s critiques, explain why the alternative analytical approach they propose is inappropriate for the questions we studied, and show that their approach generates inaccurate output.