Perception of Resources Spent on Defensive Medicine and History of Being Sued Among Hospitalists: Results from a National Survey

Of the 1753 surveys mailed, 253 were excluded due to incorrect addresses or because the recipients were not practicing hospitalists. A total of 1020 were completed and returned, yielding a 68% response rate (1020 out of 1500 eligible). The hospitalist respondents were in practice for an average of 11 years (range 1-40 years). Respondents represented all 50 states and had a diverse background of experience and demographic characteristics, which has been previously described.⁶

Resources Estimated Spent on Defensive Medicine

Hospitalists reported, on average, that they believed defensive medicine accounted for 37.5% (standard deviation, 20.2%) of all healthcare spending. Results from the multivariable regression are presented in the Table. Hospitalists affiliated with a VA hospital reported 5.5% less in resources spent on defensive medicine than those not affiliated with a VA hospital (32.2% VA vs 37.7% non-VA, P = 0.025). For every 10 years in practice, the estimate of resources spent on defensive medicine decreased by 3% (P = 0.003). Those who were male (36.4% male vs 39.4% female, P = 0.023) and non-Hispanic white (32.5% non-Hispanic white vs 44.7% other, P ≤ 0.001) also estimated less resources spent on defensive medicine. We did not find an association between a hospitalist reporting being sued and their perception of resources spent on defensive medicine.  

Risk of Being Sued

Over a quarter of our sample (25.6%) reported having been sued at least once for medical malpractice. The proportion of hospitalists that reported a history of being sued generally increased with more years of practice (Figure). For those who had been in practice for at least 20 years, more than half (55%) had been sued at least once during their career.

In a national survey, hospitalists estimated that almost 40% of all healthcare-related resources are spent purely because of defensive medicine concerns. This estimate was affected by personal demographic and employment factors. Our second major finding is that over one-quarter of a large random sample of hospitalist physicians reported being sued for malpractice.

Hospitalist perceptions of defensive medicine varied significantly based on employment at a VA hospital, with VA-affiliated hospitalists reporting less estimated spending on defensive medicine. This effect may reflect a less litigious environment within the VA, even though physicians practicing within the VA can be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank.⁷ The different environment may be due to the VA’s patient mix (VA patients tend to be poorer, older, sicker, and have more mental illness)⁸; however, it could also be due to its de facto practice of a form of enterprise liability, in which, by law, the VA assumes responsibility for negligence, sheltering its physicians from direct liability.

We also found that the higher the number of years a hospitalist reported practicing, the lower the perception of resources being spent on defensive medicine. The reason for this finding is unclear. There has been a recent focus on high-value care and overspending, and perhaps younger hospitalists are more aware of these initiatives and thus have higher estimates. Additionally, non-Hispanic white male respondents estimated a lower amount spent on defensive medicine compared with other respondents. This is consistent with previous studies of risk perception which have noted a “white male effect” in which white males generally perceive a wide range of risks to be lower than female and non-white individuals, likely due to sociopolitical factors.⁹ Here, the white male effect is particularly interesting, considering that male physicians are almost 2.5 times as likely as female physicians to report being sued.¹⁰

Similar to prior studies,¹¹ there was no association with personal liability claim experience and perceived resources spent on defensive medicine. It is unclear why personal experience of being sued does not appear to be associated with perceptions of defensive medicine practice. It is possible that the fear of being sued is worse than the actual experience or that physicians believe that lawsuits are either random events or inevitable and, as a result, do not change their practice patterns.

The lifetime risk of being named in a malpractice suit is substantial for hospitalists: in our study, over half of hospitalists in practice for 20 years or more reported they had been sued. This corresponds with the projection made by Jena and colleagues,¹² which estimated that 55% of internal medicine physicians will be sued by the age of 45, a number just slightly higher than the average for all physicians.

Our study has important limitations. Our sample was of hospitalists and therefore may not be reflective of other medical specialties. Second, due to the nature of the study design, the responses to spending on defensive medicine may not represent actual practice. Third, we did not confirm details such as place of employment or history of lawsuit, and this may be subject to recall bias. However, physicians are unlikely to forget having been sued. Finally, this survey is observational and cross-sectional. Our data imply association rather than causation. Without longitudinal data, it is impossible to know if years of practice correlate with perceived defensive medicine spending due to a generational effect or a longitudinal effect (such as more confidence in diagnostic skills with more years of practice).

Despite these limitations, our survey has important policy implications. First, we found that defensive medicine is perceived by hospitalists to be costly. Although physicians likely overestimated the cost (37.5%, or an estimated $1 trillion is far higher than previous estimates of approximately 2% of all healthcare spending),⁴ it also demonstrates the extent to which physicians feel as though the medical care that is provided may be unnecessary. Second, at least a quarter of hospitalist physicians have been sued, and the risk of being named as a defendant in a lawsuit increases the longer they have been in clinical practice.

Given these findings, policies aimed to reduce the practice of defensive medicine may help the rising costs of healthcare. Reducing defensive medicine requires decreasing physician fears of liability and related reporting. Traditional tort reforms (with the exception of damage caps) have not been proven to do this. And damage caps can be inequitable, hard to pass, and even found to be unconstitutional in some states.¹³ However, other reform options hold promise in reducing liability fears, including enterprise liability, safe harbor legislation, and health courts.¹³ Finally, shared decision-making models may also provide a method to reduce defensive fears as well.⁶