Defensive Medicine and the Drone Wars

From my interview with Andrew Thompson the other day, the issue of a medical malpractice crisis was raised.  Mr Thompson averred that such a concept is pure myth, a spook story older docs tell young interns around the campfire at night.  And he may be right.  In a paper from the Journal of Healthcare Quality, researchers at Johns Hopkins demonstrated, using data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, that "catastrophic claims" (those awards in excess of $1 million) totalled about $1 billion per year, a figure that represents just 0.05% of total national healthcare spending in this country.  Now one could retort that "catastrophic claims" account  for only 36% of total claims over the time period (unduly neglecting the effects of smaller claims up to $1 million) or that the study doesn't include the settlements made with hospitals and healthcare corporations, only individual physicians.  But the data are eye opening nonetheless.  Total number of med mal cases have been dropping precipitously over the past ten years.  The costs of waging a medical malpractice case are prohibitive for most law firms (discovery, expert witnesses, contingency based fees, physicians win 70% of cases that go to trial, etc).  So why is tort reform still the linchpin piece of alternative national healthcare reform plans?  Why do the GOP and physicians organizations continue to shout from the rooftops that me...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - Category: Surgeons Authors: Source Type: blogs