Perfection is expensive

The public demand for physician perfection comes with a price:

This zero defect mentality costs money and very little of it improves patient care. Mostly it goes to cover the massive cost of defensive medicine which is what, I would dare say from personal experience, most of American medicine comes down to. We know better of course, but it is a lot easier to obtain the CT or order the test than to defend your perfectly reasonable, evidence-based rationale for not obtaining it. We also probably admit many more people than need to be admitted out of the fear of allowing patients to be responsible for their own outpatient follow-up.