07-18-2012, 08:26 PM
Acer wrote:
I don't disagree that unreasonable malpractice actions exist, nor that defensive medicine is practiced, and I do agree that these areas can stand reform. But the numbers just don't add up to the level of crisis claimed.
"The cost of medical malpractice in the United States is $55.6 billion a year, which is 2.4 percent of annual health-care spending, a new study shows.
The researchers said their estimate includes $45.6 billion in what's known as defensive medicine costs -- when doctors prescribe unnecessary tests or treatments to avoid lawsuits."
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/man...year-in-us
Older article, feel free to find a better one.
Eliminating that 2.5% expense outright is just not going to make much difference. And relative to the income of the health care industry, this expense is not that big. Even doubling it by doubling Medicaid patients is not going affect the bottom line more than a relative blip.
You have to be careful how that 2.4 percent of healthcare is calculated. They usually just lump everything, including pharmacy, equipment, home health aides, hospitalization, and etc and etc into that denominator. If you take the parts where doctors are responsible for, number becomes increasingly larger.
Furthermore, I think that 2.4 percent is a low ball number. I know that CYA occurs fairly frequently.