Increasingly, over the past several years, studies have demonstrated that physicians provide two distinct types of unnecessary treatment. First, they practice "defensive medicine" in which they order extra tests and procedures for legal risk-averse reasons. Non-beneficial life-sustaining treatment often falls into this category. Second, physicians practice "offensive medicine" in which they order order extra tests and procedures because they are reimbursed at an attractive level.
Happily, Jane Gross raised the profile of the second problem a few days ago in the New York Times. He column begins: "HERE is the dirty little secret of health care in America for the elderly, the one group we all assume has universal coverage thanks to the 1965 Medicare law: what Medicare paid for then is no longer what recipients need or want today."
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