Does data exist on a possible relationship between malpractice suits and “overtreatment”?
The evidence suggests that states with limits on damages in medical malpractice suits do not have lower per-capita spending on medical care than states without limits — suggesting that medical malpractice suits are not a primary or overt cause of overtreatment or high health care spending. However, there is a theory that the country’s tremendous geographic variations in medical spending, which do not correlate with better quality of care, are instead promoted by the treatment norms and practices among local groups of doctors. It is conceivable that one of the factors, consciously or not, that contribute to doctors’ adherence to community treatment norms is that they feel that such adherence at least partially inoculates them from charges of malpractice. Further, many practitioners around the nation complain of the role that “defensive medicine” plays in their everyday practice decision-making. 6) It seems that a significant percentage of Medicare costs go to treatment at end of life.
