Most discussions about improving quality and lowering cost of healthcare focus on precision medicine, value-based care and lowering drug and supply costs. But there is one area costing billions of dollars per year that is rarely noted — defensive medicine.
Defensive medicine, or making decisions to prevent lawsuits instead of what is best for the patient, costs the healthcare system $50 billion to $65 billion annually, according to the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Nearly 77 percent of surgeons have been named in a lawsuit throughout their careers, according to the "Medscape Surgeon Malpractice Report 2021," and 65 percent said the primary reason for the lawsuit was related to surgery and treatment complications. The next most common reasons for a lawsuit were poor outcomes, disease progression and wrongful death.
Eighty-two percent of physicians who have been sued said they felt the lawsuit wasn't warranted, and 38 percent said they were surprised. Thirty-nine percent reported the issue was settled before going to trial, and 17 percent said the judge or jury sided with the physicians.
Just 3 percent of the physicians said the judge or jury returned a verdict in favor of the patient.
"The laws in most states do very little or nothing to discourage a frivolous lawsuit," said Vladimir Sinkov, MD, founder and CEO of Sinkov Spine Center in Las Vegas. "Even if a doctor is completely innocent and did everything according to the standard of care, they can still be sued and will face two to three years of lost time, lost income, legal expenses and stress as they simply try to prove their innocence."
Rather than risk losing a lawsuit, some surgeons exhaust all tests and resources to make sure they would be able to defend themselves in a court of law, leading to unnecessary tests and wasteful spending.
"Most doctors, at least to some degree, practice defensive medicine," said Dr. Sinkov. "Instead of just treating their patients, they also need to consider what should be done and documented to 'cover their butt' in case a lawsuit is filed or to discourage it from being filed. This results in hours of wasted time and effort, billions of wasted healthcare dollars and lots of unnecessary tests ordered or specialist referrals made."