From the perspective of law-and-economics, this paper analyzed the characteristics between medical workplace and other workplace in terms of public safety liability, risk identifiability and preventability. Then it went on to explore the costs structure incurred by medical violence, namely personal costs of victims, public safety cost, risk prevention cost and service supply cost. A law-and-economics optimal penalty model is then developed based on the benchmark of crime of violence free of social cost, and by incorporating the social cost of medical violence. And it is found that an upward deflection of the crime cost curve sharply drives up the optimal penalty corresponding to various levels of violence, and lowers the threshold violence constituting criminal offence, thus balancing the social costs borne by the public for medical violence.

Traditional mindset in anti-medical violence legislation tends to divert the responsibility to prevent medical violence to the party of the lowest costs, a design of obvious loopholes in reducing medical violence occurrence. By combining the legal liability and penalty adjustment to counter medical violence crimes, the US, Australia and South Korea are trying to match the private cost of victims and its social cost with the punishment of crime law. In this sense, China should highlight the nature of public safety of medical service, zero tolerance report and optimal punishment to medical violence crimes. This approach can take place of the existing incentive mechanism featuring violent conflicts, being conducive to building a safe and harmonious doctor-patient relationship.