Lawsuit Fears Drive Doctors to Play it Safe; Costs Mount as Physicians Order More Tests, Referrals

Dr. Michael Rosenberg can’t help but look at some of his patients and wonder if someday they’ll sue him for medical malpractice, potentially putting his livelihood as a plastic surgeon in jeopardy. “In the course of deciding what’s really best for your patient and what you want to do, sometimes you find yourself thinking, ‘How could I possibly be second-guessed?’” Dr. Rosenberg said during an interview at his office in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Many physicians say that in trying to treat their patients, they practice ‘defensive’ medicine — over-ordering tests, over-referring patients to specialists, or over-prescribing medication — only to fend off lawsuits in case something goes wrong.Doctors say they are in a difficult position because they want to protect themselves against legal vulnerabilities, and at the same time not over-prescribe expensive medical testing such as MRIs and CAT scans, which insurers monitor for unnecessary usage. “Sometimes we end up being in a position where we feel like we have to do things a little more defensively than would be ideal in the best of all possible worlds,” said Dr. Rosenberg, the president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. ‘Where that comes in is the test that should be ordered every 12 months but is ordered every six months, or the antibiotic [prescribed even though] maybe you’d ideally wait a day and see if it is necessary.’ A 2005 study of 824 Pennsylvania doctors showed that 93 percent of respondents reported that they sometimes or often practiced ‘defensive medicine,’ according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, released earlier this year, placed the amount spent by physicians practicing defensive medicine at $210 billion.

Please click on the link below to read the Toledo Blade article:

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080824/NEWS32/106232055

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Applications Pour In for First Class at Free Medical School

Deborah German hopes to have 100 applicants for every spot in the first-ever class at the University of Central Flordia’s medical school — and she’s already most of the way there. German, the dean of UCF’s nascent med school, is offering an astonishingly potent lure in an era of crushing student debt: Four-year scholarships for tuition, fees and living expenses for every member of the first-year class. As of this morning, the school had received 2,996 applications for its charter class of 40, which will enter next year. That’s a ratio that would be the envy of the deans at the nation’s top medical schools. The application period started a few months ago, and it runs through December. While there will be some scholarships for students in subsequent classes, the first class is likely to be the only one to get the free-for-all deal. And German was careful to add that the stipend for living expenses — $20,000 per year — won’t have students living in luxury on philanthropists’ dime.

Please click on the link below to read the Wall Street Journal article:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/09/08/applications-pour-in-for-first-class-at-free-medical-school/

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.