What profession is blamed for $850 billion in Unnecessary Health Care Costs?

[JoeB131]

Once again your OPINION is totally whacked and WRONG as I can confidently say because YOU spout off something you made up and obviously unlike me you never
use links to substantiate your unsupported opinion.

Actually, I've posted several links in this thread, but keep lying, it's what you do best.

You said not all suits are against doctors and now you are say mostly against hospitals?
So when the doctors tell you they are practicing defensive medicine you think they are trying to protect hospitals???

I don't believe what they are telling me, that's the thing. I think they are making a mint off of these defensive medicine things, and they just find the lawyers as a easy scapegoat to how much they are gouging the consumer.

"Yes, I'm going to order this extra test at a clinic owned by my cousin Maury, because I'm afraid of getting sued and not because I can charge your insurance for the additional visits to tell you what that test found out. Fucking Lawyers!"

With this kind of legal activities NOW is there any wonder $850 billion a year in wasted duplicate defensive medicine practices are paid?

I'm not reposting your stupid article, but that award had NOTHING to do with duplicate tests of defensive medicine. It had to do with a Doctor making unprofessional conduct and disparaging remarks about a patient during a procedure because she thought he was under.

 

[JoeB131]

So let's look at the reality.

New Study Debunks Defensive Medicine Myth | The American Association For Justice

The study researched the effects of tort reform on emergency room department treatments by examining Medicare emergency room fee-for-service claims data from 1997-2011 in Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. All of these states have made it more difficult for injured patients to hold negligent caregivers accountable when they are injured in the emergency department. Researchers found that such reforms did not change doctors’ testing behaviors and that, according to the study:

“…physicians are less motivated by legal risk than they believe themselves to be. Although a practice culture of abundant caution clearly exists, it seems likely that an aversion to legal risk exists in parallel with a more general risk aversion and with other behavioral, cultural, and economic motivations that might affect decision making. When legal risk decreases, the ‘path of least resistance’ may still favor resource-intensive care. Our results suggest that malpractice reform may have less effect on costs than has been projected.”

 

[Greenbeard]

A doctor who refers a patient for a MRI doesn't make any money off the MRI. Can't as it is called the Starke Law.

The Stark law applies to Medicare patients only, and it allows physicians to self-refer for MRIs as long as they're performed in the practice (this falls under the "in house ancillary services" exception).

E.g., see the WSJ:

Why can doctors still self-refer?

The Stark Law has exceptions. Under the “in-office ancillary services” exception, a doctor can refer a Medicare patient for a treatment or test to another doctor “who is a member of the same group practice” if the treatment or test is furnished in “the same building” or a “centralized building” used by the group practice “for the provision of some or all” of its services. Mr. Stark says part of the rationale for this exception was to protect academic medical centers like the Cleveland Clinic whose specialists coordinate patient care among one another.

How has use of the exception evolved?

Back when lawmakers included the exception, some of today’s medical advances hadn’t occurred. As new technologies that could be offered outside the hospital were introduced, doctors argued that the exception should cover them. One result: an explosion in doctors’ ownership of MRI machines and other advanced imaging equipment they can profit from–by, essentially, referring business to themselves. Companies like 21st Century Oncology also invoke the exception to refer patients in-house for radiation therapy and diagnostic tests, allowing their physician employees to share in the resulting profits.

So again, if your premise is that doctors are susceptible to knowingly and unethically providing unnecessary services for financial reasons (and are happily collecting the extra revenue that comes with those unethically delivered services), then we're in pretty big trouble. And tort reform isn't going to solve it.