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Originally Posted by Kevin
If that's the mentality docs are approaching their craft with, then they really need to get educated on what constitutes malpractice. Missing an obscure diagnosis when more obvious symptoms were presented in an ER setting is almost never going to be malpractice. Doing a CT in that case, or treating anything beyond an acceptable minimum just opens the door to other sorts of medical errors.
Do you think part of this 'defensive medicine' aspect is really that hospitals and certain practices want to conduct as many expensive procedures as possible in order to bill health insurance companies/medicare for more services delivered?
I know that the practice of law is often handled that way -- especially by insurance defense firms. They do an excellent job at billing that file. Most of them bill by the hour, and there's a saying about those guys that you'll never be deposed by an insurance defense attorney. . . because there's never just an insurance defense attorney there. They invariably send 2-3 lawyers (or more) to sit and bill their full hourly rates for listening to another lawyer conduct a deposition... but I digress.
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I don't think that physicians are ordering more tests to bill more because THEY don't get to bill more for those tests. It sounds good to lawyers because it works that way for y'all, but it doesn't work that way in medicine. The primary care doctors never see a dime for all of these extra tests. They really do just think they're protecting themselves from being sued. It's more common than you think, too. I've seen it happening at more than one hospital in more than one state, and have friends in other states that have the same experience. Physicians really think that lawyers are out to sue them if they miss anything. It may not be true, but that's the perception.