http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2008/01/why-you-should-root-against-us-health.html medical blog Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:15:05 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2008/01/why-you-should-root-against-us-health.html/comment-page-1#comment-113717 George Hossfeld, MD Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:36:10 +0000 http://clients.emmense.com/kevinmd/2008/01/why-you-should-root-against-us-health-care-reform.html#comment-113717 It's not the malpractice insurance premiums that drive up health care costs, although an obstetrician in Illinois paying a quarter million a year might disagree. It is all of us doctors who have learned (painfully) that we need to practice "CYA medicine". I order less tests than nearly all of my colleague emergency physicians at U of Illinois Hospital. Still, my % positive of head CTs is in the single digits, and I knowingly order far, far more tests and admissions than are medically warranted. We practice as if every patient who walks in might be the one with the rare disorder masquerading as the common one. When we hear hoofbeats, we test for zebras, because one day it might be that zebra and if we ever miss it, we will surely end up in a courtroom. It’s not the malpractice insurance premiums that drive up health care costs, although an obstetrician in Illinois paying a quarter million a year might disagree. It is all of us doctors who have learned (painfully) that we need to practice “CYA medicine”. I order less tests than nearly all of my colleague emergency physicians at U of Illinois Hospital. Still, my % positive of head CTs is in the single digits, and I knowingly order far, far more tests and admissions than are medically warranted. We practice as if every patient who walks in might be the one with the rare disorder masquerading as the common one. When we hear hoofbeats, we test for zebras, because one day it might be that zebra and if we ever miss it, we will surely end up in a courtroom.

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