Effect of Litigation on Mammography Practice

Does litigation influence medical practice? The influence of community radiologists' medical malpractice perceptions and experience on screening mammography.

Reference-Radiology 2005 Jul;236(1):37-46

"To assess the relationship between radiologists' perception of and experience with medical malpractice and their patient-recall rates in actual community-based clinical settings. The majority of the radiologists who responded to a question regarding the degree of stress caused by a medical malpractice claim described the experience as very or extremely stressful. More than three of every four radiologists expressed concern about the impact medical malpractice has on mammography practice, with over half indicating that their concern moderately to greatly increased the number of their recommendations for breast biopsies. Radiologists' estimates of their future malpractice risk were substantially higher than the actual historical risk. Almost one of every three radiologists had considered withdrawing from mammogram interpretation because of malpractice concerns. No significant association was found between recall rates and radiologists' experiences or perceptions of medical malpractice. U.S. radiologists are extremely concerned about medical malpractice and report that this concern affects their recall rates and biopsy recommendations."