The full costs of litigation actually include much more than judgments that are paid to plaintiffs and the costs of litigation—the “direct costs.” There are indirect costs as well, and patients must bear those costs too. For example, many doctors practice “defensive medicine,” ordering expensive but unnecessary treatments for patients, or refusing to provide risky but beneficial treatments, simply in order to avoid liability. Another indirect cost of liability—and an especially bad one—is that error reporting in hospitals and among physicians is discouraged.
