‘Cowboy’ doctors account for a lot of unnecessary care, Medicare expenditures

(By – Ron Shinkman, www.fiercehealthfinance.com)

So-called “cowboy doctors”–clinicians who provide intensive, but unnecessary care–account for more than a third of all Medicare expenditures at the end of life and 12 percent of all Medicare expenditures overall, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers.

The term “cowboy doctors” are a contrast to what the study called “comforters”–doctors who provide palliative care near the end of life. Such doctors are likely to be male and practice in the South and Southeast, economist and study co-author David Cutler told Harvard Magazine. Read more…

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