Link to the study: http://www.nber.org/papers/w24846
A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
11–20 of 127 posts
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#12>> In the federal government and in states, there are frequent proposals to limit medical liability, but there have been no serious efforts to eliminate medical malpractice rights altogether. Damb right. Take away a patient's right to hold doctors accountable and things go south very quickly, at least in a for-profit systems. >>But American doctors often rail against the country’s medical malpractice system, which th…
No idea why this is being downvoted. Maybe they missed the qualifier?
> . . . at least in a for-profit systems.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#13Wait until the NY Times finds out that c-sections have greatly increased because of high-dollar awards like the one that made John Edwards (yes the politician) a millionaire...
I somehow missed this. What a jerk.
https://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/john-edwards-in...
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#14Wait until the NY Times finds out that c-sections have greatly increased because of high-dollar awards like the one that made John Edwards (yes the politician) a millionaire...
My wife is a doula and apparently the injury and mortality rates for mother and child are much higher than through natural childbirth.
But because of their insurance coverage, if a mother or baby dies during natural childbirth the doctor is at greater risk for malpractice. So, they will rush mother's into C-section at any excuse (it saves them hours of work too not having to sit through a long labor).
Unfortunately, money and efficiency have taken priority over natural processes.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#15> Any law that limits the cases where patients can sue, or the amount of money they can collect, is likely to lower medical use in the hospital by less than the 5 percent they measured in their study.
The telling thing about laws to address malpractice liability is that they typically are focused on capping large verdicts. But such laws are illogical: generally, large verdicts will be awarded where a doctor screwed up and caused the most damage. Cases with large verdicts are the most meritorious ones, and the ones where limiting liability is least likely to eliminate over-testing that does not contribute to quality of care.
If states actually wanted to address the costs of defensive medicine, they would do something like create affirmative defenses for doctors who adhered to certain established testing protocols.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#16Aren't a lot of these costs baked into all services due to malpractice insurance itself? If these doctors could be sued by some of their patients (the families), they still need to cover the cost of that insurance.
Beyond that, once defensive medicine is the status quo, why would they make a choice to not order their usual defensive panels? They aren't paying for them themselves.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#17Extra tests... the cost of diagnostics is a tiny fraction of the cost of doctor time, and most patients just go to the doctor to get the test. The doctor is an irellevant gatekeeper 90% of the time. How about we start talking about ‘extra’ doctor visits because patients don’t have access to tests. There are some diagnostics where this gatekeeping is literally causing a public health crisis. ‘Extra tests’ are only an issue because of the untreated disease they reveal, which costs insurers money to treat. This ‘concern’ is all part of their lobby.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#18>> In the federal government and in states, there are frequent proposals to limit medical liability, but there have been no serious efforts to eliminate medical malpractice rights altogether. Damb right. Take away a patient's right to hold doctors accountable and things go south very quickly, at least in a for-profit systems. >>But American doctors often rail against the country’s medical malpractice system, which th…
A patient can sue for any reason. They can be wrong and sue. It's then up to the physican to pay costs for legal defense (i.e. medical malpractice insurance). If the patient is wrong, then the physican can counter-sue. This whole dance is very expensive and, worse, time consuming (which, for a doc, is the ultimate resource). This cost ends up on the patient ad the doc must raise prices to account for the new insuranc…
Patients normally sue a hospital system though. My partner has been involved in dozens of malpractice lawsuits over the years because every person who interacted with the patient during their stay is named in the lawsuit, not just the doctor(s) who treat them.
Hospitals have staff lawyers whose job it is to deal with lawsuits. So it's not terribly time-consuming for doctors outside of depositions.
It's safe to say that this is one of the reasons that doctors move from private practice into working in a hospital system. But it's also not a major one (dealing with insurance companies is the major factor).
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#19>> In the federal government and in states, there are frequent proposals to limit medical liability, but there have been no serious efforts to eliminate medical malpractice rights altogether. Damb right. Take away a patient's right to hold doctors accountable and things go south very quickly, at least in a for-profit systems. >>But American doctors often rail against the country’s medical malpractice system, which th…
This is where a universal healthcare system takes some causes for inefficiency out of the system, reducing at least one source of major need for lawsuits - the need to fund future medical care.
That said, government administrated systems can become just as bad or worse because you don't have meaningful alternatives or the alternatives that exist aren't practical/affordable.
Re: A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests
#20Extra tests... the cost of diagnostics is a tiny fraction of the cost of doctor time, and most patients just go to the doctor to get the test. The doctor is an irellevant gatekeeper 90% of the time. How about we start talking about ‘extra’ doctor visits because patients don’t have access to tests. There are some diagnostics where this gatekeeping is literally causing a public health crisis. ‘Extra tests’ are only an…
That is very accurate... I had an injury that I knew required specific surgery, but when I called the surgeon's office to make an appointment I was told that they only accepted referrals from family doctors, that is, I had to pay to visit a family doctor first.
This applies nowadays to most specialists as well.