The practice of ordering specific diagnostic procedures with little or no benefit to the patient to protect the physicians against lawsuits has been common practice among orthopedic physicians for several years. In the study, 72 orthopedic surgeons voluntarily participated in the study that recorded whether the physician practiced defensive medicine.
The study found 19 percent of imaging tests were ordered for defensive medicine purposes and that defensive medicine was responsible for $113,369, or 34.8 percent, of total imaging charges in the study, based on Medicare dollars.
The research also found surgeons were more likely to practice defensively if they had been in practice for more than 15 years. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in May 2006 showed 37 percent of medical liability claims did not involve medical errors. A second study published in the June 2005 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported nearly 93 percent of 824 physicians in Pennsylvania reported practicing defensive medicine.
Read the AAOS news release on defensive medicine.
Read other coverage on defensive medicine:
– 5 Statistics for Orthopedic Surgeons on Defensive Medicine
– Younger Physicians More Likely to be Trained in Defensive Medicine
