Your Doctor May Be Lying to You

Washington D.C. - Doctors, one of the most highly-regarded groups of people in the country, are not completely honest with their patients according to a survey published by Health Affairs.

More than half of the doctors surveyed admit to giving a better prognosis about their patients issue than was the truth, a fifth don't fully disclose a medical mistake, and a tenth lied to a patient. The survey, in which more than 1,800 doctors participated, doesn't ask why or what was lied about.

About a third of those surveyed said they didn't completely agree about doctors confessing to any mistakes, which Dr. Arthur Capln said is “Just inexcusable...Your care now has to be different because of what happened.”

Most doctors also state, the study shows, physicians need to fully-informe their patients even though some of them admit to not following up on doing so.

The vast majority of those surveyed agreed that physicians should fully inform patients of the risks, not just the benefits, of treatment options and never tell a patient something that isn't true — even though some admitted they hadn't followed that advice at least on rare occasions in the past year.