Defensive practice is the order of the day. With the cost of health care sky rocketing, and with professionals finding it difficult to take time off from busy schedules if sick, and fear factor- is any thing wrong with me?, has made people to go in for preventive investigations and treatment. But there has also chances of misuse. Here is a survey which shows how much of state money goes into defensive medicine & how it can be curtailed.

Team@CMHF

In the first, known prospective study, Pennsylvania orthopedic surgeons admitted that almost 20% of the imaging studies they ordered were for defensive purposes.
Physicians swear that most doctors practice it.  Plaintiff attorneys question that, and argue whether states that have enacted tort reform impact defensive medicine rates.

A total of 72 orthopedic surgeons agreed to participate, submitting information on a total of 2,068 scans. Of these, 396 — 19.1% — were listed as primarily defensive. About 70% of these were conventional x-rays and 25% were MRI scans. But the MRI scans accounted for about 75% of the defensive costs, Miller and colleagues estimated using Medicare reimbursement rates.

A study in Health Affairs last year pegs the number at $56 billion, or 2.4% of the nation’s total health costs, while the CBO estimated last year that tort reform, in guise of malpractice caps, would save about $55.6 billion, mostly by curbing defensive medicine.

Though this kind of practice is not very prevalent here in India it can be nipped in the bud if the tort reform is found worthy

Ref: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/02/defensive-medicine-accounts-20-mri-scans-xrays.html

For: Allopaths.