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Doctors who choose to invest in better equipment are less likely to be involved in a malpractice lawsuit.
A new study conducted among medical practitioners brought forth some additional facts regarding the ever climbing rates of medical malpractice incidence. No one sues the rich doctor and even the number seem to be in their favor.
According to the study, physicians who chose to invest larger sums of money in equipment are less likely to be sued for malpractice. The survey was conducted in Florida between 2001 and 2010. Many tops were made regarding the most pricy doctors out there on the market. It seems that Florida claimed this title and even managed to hold it between 2001 and 2009.
Also, besides the expenditures necessary to buy extra equipment, all interviewed doctors had knowledge of what is called defensive medicine. A Doctor Anupam Jena, from the Massachusetts General Hospital, offered some insight on this issue. She declared that if we take a close look at the numbers, we can clearly see that the physicians who are willing to spend that extra something is less likely to get involved in a trial. On the opposite side are the doctors who chose not to invest additional money into better equipment. Statistics place their risk of being involved in a malpractice lawsuit at circa 50 percent.
Although the study seem to be harmonized with real facts, it has quite a lot of limitation and loopholes. For example, the study itself focuses on the total revenue of physician and how much he spends on equipment. The study doesn’t say anything about what is behind each malpractice lawsuit filed against the physician. Better yet, when it boils down to medical error, the extra expenditures spent on medical gadgets may have nothing to do with the actual circumstance.
In order to piece together this study, the authors consulted data about 24000 physicians. As the numbers point out, all these doctors amassed nearly 154000 years of work and were involved in over 18 million cases. In those 18 million cases, only 4000 ended up with a malpractice lawsuit. This means that in 2.8 percent of the cases, the physician would be sued for malpractice.
The possibility of a malpractice lawsuit doesn’t have an impact solely the physician’s freedom but could very well alter his future career. Hence, each day, doctors chose to brush up on their defensive medicine skills.
According to the same study, obstetricians who performed C-sections are less likely to be sued than any other medical specialty.
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