Yes, malpractice fears is one contributor to the medicalization of everyday life:
Medico-legal concerns also drive the epidemic. While failing to make a diagnosis can result in lawsuits, there are no corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis. Thus, the path of least resistance for clinicians is to diagnose liberally “” even when we wonder if doing so really helps our patients.
Related posts:
- Non-diagnoses
- My take: Night float, free medical school, triage and disease management
- Searching for health on the web often leads to the most dire diagnoses
- Bipolar disease and the young
- Reasons not to become a doctor
- Rheumatologists debate whether fibromyalgia is really a disease
- Retail clinics are not for patients with chronic disease
KevinMD.com on Facebook
Comments on this entry are closed.