The Harvard researchers brought out that the costs involved in the medical malpractice put a smaller fraction of additional burden on total healthcare expenditure.

The findings of the study were published in the September issue of Health Affairs, along with the series of articles that investigated Physicians' Misperception of Malpractice Lawsuits.

In 2008, the costs incurred on medical malpractices were about $55.6 billion, a 2.4% extra on the $2.3-trillion health tab. The activities that inflicted such costs were tests, procedures, and treatments linked with defensive medicine.

The analysis has been made by the crew of researchers of Harvard Medical School led by Atul A. Gawande, MD.

They said, “It represents a small fraction of total health care spending. Yet in absolute dollars, the amount is not trivial".

As per another study, in which J. William Thomas, PhD, of the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy at the University of Southern Maine, in Portland, and colleagues scrutinized 35 medical specialties and their costs of defensive medicine, the cost of medical malpractices is smaller as compared to total health costs. So, employing tort reforms and cutting medical malpractice premiums by 10% would only bring health costs in the country down by 0.120% to 0.134%.

The experts are of the view that the costs related to medical malpractices are not as much as the costs linked to lawsuits filed against it incurs. Along with that, the litigations also leave psychological effect.