According to a new study, the more tests and treatments U.S. doctors prescribe for patients, the lesser the chances of them being tried for malpractice, Philly.com reports.
For the study, a team led by Dr. Anupam Jena, a health economist at Harvard Medical School, studied data from nearly 19 million Florida hospital admissions between 2000 and 2009 and malpractice claims against more than 24,000 doctors in seven specialties.
The study revealed that there were more than 4,300 malpractice claims. The overall rate was 2.8 percent per doctor annually, with pediatric doctors faring better than doctors in general surgery and obstetrics and gynecology with less than 2 percent per doctor a year to more than 4 percent per doctor a year sued for malpractice, respectively.
The study was published online Nov. 4 in the journal BMJ.
"The study shows that we need to better understand defensive medicine and how this type of practice impacts both patients and physicians," Tara Bishop and Michael Pesko, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, wrote in an accompanying journal editorial.
The study also found that higher average spending by patients was linked with a lower risk of malpractice claims across all seven medical specialties studied by the researchers.
"If you order every test known to man ... you may reduce the likelihood that you will get sued, but it certainly isn't the best medicine for people, and it certainly isn't the most cost efficient," said Dr. Alan Woodward, an emergency medicine physician in Concord, Mass., who was not involved in the study, according to STAT News.
Experts say that the connection between "defensive medicine" and malpractice should be further studied.
Defensive medicine refers to providing care to diminish the threat of malpractice, rather than to improve diagnosis or treatment.
