Would a Doctor Admit to Practicing Defensive Medicine?
There have been arguments made that doctors regularly order medically unnecessary tests, because they want to protect themselves from lawsuits for not “performing every test” when diagnosing a patient. When a test is ordered without reasonable basis, it can be referred to as defensive medicine. Some have argued that defensive medicine has tremendous hidden costs.
It is very difficult to estimate the actual cost of defensive medicine, because there are very few doctors who would admit to doing it. Determining that this practice even exists is challenging. If doctors report that they participate in defensive medicine, they are basically admitting that they practice outside the realm of the standard of care. This admission sounds like the very definition of medical malpractice, which is defined as deviating from the acceptable standard of care.
Also, if doctors admit to practicing defensive medicine, it means that they are committing insurance fraud. Insurance companies are only obligated to pay claims that are reasonable and necessary to treat an illness or injury.
One of the best ways to determine if defensive medicine exists is to review patients’ medical records. However, this type of review is never done. A doctor isn’t going to admit to conducting defensive medicine and then say, “Here are the records to prove it.”