Defensive medicine: is legal protection the only motive?

This article on defensive medicine is the fifth in a periodic series of articles about rising healthcare costs. Specifically, the series explores healthcare expenditures on items other than direct patient care. The intent of the series is to indicate areas of hospital operations that may need trimming, particularly if executives want purchasers and payers of care to know that hospitals are doing everything they can to minimize costs without sacrificing quality of care. Like regulatory costs, which were covered in the last article, defensive medicine is sometimes beyond the control of hospitals. The first report of the series appeared Jan. 15; subsequent articles appeared April 30, Aug. 6 and Aug. 20.