Since my last post, I’ve been contacted and pointed to some additional information on defensive medicine.

In the Journal Health Affairs, 29, no. 9 (2010): 1578-1584, authored by J. William Thomas^,, Erika C. Ziller and Deborah A. Thayer, they attempted to determine whether defensive medicine does take place and if so, how much could be saved.

Their study concluded that some physicians do practice defensive medicine.  If Malpractice premiums could be reduced by 10%, they estimate that the cost of health care could be reduced by 0.132 percent.  If malpractice premiums could be reduced by 30 percent, the cost of health care could be reduced by0 .4%.  Both of these cost saving estimates would occur because doctors would be less likely to practice defensive medicine.

In other words, if tort reform measures could reduce malpractice costs by 30 percent, a $1,000 per month health insurance plan could be reduced to $996.00 per month. 

While we hear a lot about tort reform in the news and from some politicians, we shouldn’t expect tort reform to have much of an effect on the cost of health care.