CHICAGO — Doctors overwhelmingly believe they overtest and overtreat to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits.
A survey of 1,231 physicians nationwide asked point blank: “Do physicians order more tests and procedures than patients need to protect themselves from malpractice suits?”
An overwhelming 91 percent replied “yes,” according to the results published yesterday in Archives of Internal Medicine.
“When you sit around at a dinner party with doctors, malpractice fears and a kind of hatred of the malpractice system really comes up as a common theme,” said survey co-author Dr. Tara Bishop of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.