ReviewJournal of general internal medicine2010
Defensive medicine, cost containment, and reform.
Review in Journal of general internal medicine, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- The impact of tort reform on defensive medicine, quality of care, and physician supply: A systematic review.Health services research · 2019Pooled it
- Defensive Medicine Attitudes and Associated Factors Among Physicians Working in Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics in Istanbul, Türkiye: Cross-Sectional Analytical Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Perceptions of Medical Malpractice Liability and Informed Consent Among Hospital Healthcare Workers: A Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Defensive medicine practices and attitudes toward malpractice among physicians in Jordan: a cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Patient influencing doctor-patient dispute trials: evidence from China.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Evaluation of malpractice fears and defensive approaches in orthodontists' clinical practice.European oral research · 2026Article
- Access to a protected setting vaccination for allergic patients: Evaluation of appropriateness. The experience of Bari Policlinico University Hospital.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Article
- Climate-Conscious Glaucoma Care: Strategies to Minimize the Environmental Impact in the Operating Room and in the Clinic.Journal of ophthalmology · 2025Review
- Waste and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Produced from Ophthalmic Surgeries: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Implementing high-value, cost-conscious care: experiences of Irish doctors and the role of education in facilitating this approach.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Rationale for issuing neuroimaging requests for patients with primary headaches in China.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
- Policy Options for Reducing Defensive Medicine Behaviors: A Multi-Method Study.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2024Article
- To find fault is easy, to find no-fault is fair.Future healthcare journal · 2023Article
- Article
- Not Your Mother's Melanoma: Causes and Effects of Early Melanoma Diagnosis.Dermatopathology (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Patient-centred care and patient autonomy: doctors' views in Chinese hospitals.BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Patient safety assurance in the age of defensive medicine: a review.Patient safety in surgery · 2022Article
- Medical errors, medical negligence and defensive medicine: A narrative review.Clinics (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2022Review
- Death Related to a Congenital Vascular Anomaly of Pulmonary Hamartoma Type: Malpractice or Tragic Fatality?Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The role of defensive medicine in driving up health care costs is hotly contended. Physicians and health policy experts in particular tend to have sharply divergent views on the subject. Physicians argue that defensive medicine is a significant driver of health care cost inflation. Policy analysts, on the other hand, observe that malpractice reform, by itself, will probably not do much to reduce costs. We argue that both answers are incomplete. Ultimately, malpractice reform is a necessary but insufficient component of medical cost containment. The evidence suggests that defensive medicine accounts for a small but non-negligible fraction of health care costs. Yet the traditional medical malpractice reforms that many physicians desire will not assuage the various pressures that lead providers to overprescribe and overtreat. These reforms may, nevertheless, be necessary to persuade physicians to accept necessary changes in their practice patterns as part of the larger changes to the health care payment and delivery systems that cost containment requires.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.