Nine medical specialty groups have released a list of 45 tests and procedures that patients often do not need - even though doctors routinely perform them. They include annual electrocardiograms, CT scans for low back pain, and chest X-rays before surgery. Ordering these tests when they are not merited wastes money and can harm patients by exposing them to radiation and more unneeded medical procedures, the physician groups said.
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This issue goes mostly to ethics not cost control. If testing is reduced then the price for services will rise to maintain what is lost revenue for practices and institutions. They have to support a professional structure that is not reduced with less testing. Do you think radiologists are going to be happy with a pay cut with less mammograms ordered? This will not happen. Also with hospitals or corporations employing doctors it has surely distorted the ordering provider's judgment. The public has little information on what really drives medical costs. Health care mimics our views on pregnancy. Everyone thinks they are an expert and feels free on any occasion inclined to proffer advice no matter their level of expertise.
It would have been a kindness to provide a link to the study.
http://choosingwisely.org/?page_id=13
But what if one of those so-called "unneeded" tests prevents disease or improves the quality or SAVES YOUR LIFE by sheer coincidence...
Link "pagano" provided does not work.
Dear Boston Globe: Where are the links??? You refer to a list of 45 tests and procedures but provide no link from your article? This is the 21st century -- please, what are you thinking? This practice is not limited to this story -- it is a Globe-wide practice to avoid providing links to related/derivative articles, etc. Please explain this gaping failure. Sincerely: jdullea