Abstract

To improve their fiscal position, Medicare and some state Medicaid programs have recently taken steps to mandate reporting of personal injury awards and thus facilitate subrogation against such awards. Participants in the tort system have argued these additional reporting requirements might delay settlement of claims, harming both plaintiffs and defendants. This article examines this problem empirically, using a rich, national data set of closed automobile bodily injury claims. Using a differences-in-differences research design that exploits the introduction of a new Medicare reporting requirement in 2011, it demonstrates that mandated reporting increased time to settlement by 19%, or an average of 58 days. Robustness checks using data from closed malpractice claims reveal a similar delay. Conservative calculations suggest such delays could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in waiting costs each year. Policymakers should be aware of and seek to avoid such costs as they assess whether and how to expand reporting of personal injury awards.

中文翻译：

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强制性保险人报告对结算延迟的影响

抽象的

为了改善其财政状况，Medicare和一些州的Medicaid计划最近已采取步骤，要求报告人身伤害赔偿金，从而促进对此类赔偿金的代位。侵权行为系统的参与者认为，这些额外的报告要求可能会延迟索赔的解决，从而损害原告和被告。本文使用丰富的封闭式汽车人身伤害索赔的国家数据，从经验上考察了这个问题。使用差异研究设计，该设计利用了2011年新的Medicare报告要求的引入，它表明，强制报告将解决的时间增加了19％，即平均58天。使用来自不正当医疗事故索赔的数据进行的稳健性检查显示了类似的延迟。保守的计算表明，这样的延误每年可能会产生数亿美元的等待费用。决策者应意识到并设法避免此类费用，因为他们评估是否以及如何扩大人身伤害赔偿的报告。