I shared my feelings on tort reform and fraud prevention with a doctor friend of mine. He is a semi-retired emergency room physician, still practicing in The Villages area. Here's what he had to say...

"Tort reform would help eventually but not a great deal and then only very slowly. The amount of cover-your-ass tests and procedures would eventually be cut and smarter practice would result after a while. While it would be very welcome, the actual amount saved would not be that great.

Fraud detection could save big bucks and do it fairly quickly but would involve government (either Medicare itself or the U.S. Attorney investigators) looking into billing and using statistical snooping techniques to audit charges, etc. It could be done in a legal and appropriate way and SHOULD be done regardless of any reform changes."