From the desk of Araly Herrera-Borgen

In a study conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy, nearly half of the doctors surveyed said they have failed to report an impaired or incompetent colleague or a serious medical error. In effect, the study found that there is a significant “conspiracy of silence” among U.S. doctors working against the rights of injured patients.

More than 1,600 physicians responded to the survey conducted between November 2003 and June 2004, and the results were published in the December 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The doctors were asked to agree or disagree with 12 specific statements about improving access to and quality of care, managing conflicts of interest, fair distribution of limited resources, and self-policing by doctors.

While most of the doctors agreed that they should put the patient's welfare above all financial interests and report impaired or incompetent colleagues to hospital, clinic or other authorities, 46 percent of physicians admitted to not reporting a serious medical error they had witnessed and 45 percent admitted to not reporting a physician who they knew to be impaired or incompetent.

The results also found that physicians failed to live up to standards in preventing the waste of medical resources, with over one-third of doctors saying that they accommodate patients who insist on tests that they know to be unnecessary. This dilemma is especially difficult for a doctor whose employer uses patient satisfaction surveys to help evaluate their work, which places them in a no-win situation when a patient insists on a test that is unnecessary.

Additionally, 25 percent also said that they would refer patients to an imaging facility in which they maintained a financial interest, which is in violation of Medicare regulations.

While doctors and other members of the medical profession continue to point to medical malpractice lawsuits as the cause for the increased cost of healthcare, studies such as this help to reveal the truth. Medical errors and incompetent doctors often go unreported, and the wasted use of medical resources creates a more significant cost burden for insurers than liability payments.