And remember THE above case had NOTHING to do with Defensive Medicine practices!
From that same Jackson Healthcare study:
Top 10 Reasons Physicians Practice Defensive Medicine
1. To avoid being named in a potential lawsuit — 78 percent.
2. Defensive medicine has become the new "standard of care" — 61 percent.
3. Patient or family demands that everything humanly possible be done — 59 percent.
4. To adhere to the standard of perfection to which patients hold physicians. Any bad result is the physician's fault — 53 percent.
5. I do not want to risk my personal finances — 52 percent.
6. Fear of missing something. I don't want to make a mistake or be wrong — 52 percent.
7. To protect my good name. I do not wish to risk my reputation — 48 percent.
8. I have been named in a medical malpractice lawsuit and do not wish to repeat the experience — 41 percent.
9. Colleagues have been named in (a) medical malpractice lawsuit(s) and I saw what they went through to defend themselves.
I don't want that to happen to me — 41 percent.
10. Peer pressure. Other physicians of my specialty are doing it, and I'm afraid I'll look "deficient" by comparison if I do not — 24 percent.
Again all of the above reasons add up to nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in wasted money.
Do the insurance companies CARE? Of course not! Doesn't cost them in the short run. They simply raise the premiums.
