CT SCANS, MRIs and other pricey imaging tests are often more for American doctor’s benefit than the patient’s, new research confirms.<\/p>\n
Roughly one-fifth of tests that bone and joint specialists order are because a doctor fears being sued, not because the patient needs them, a first-of-its-kind study in Pennsylvania suggests.<\/p>\n
The study comes a day after President Barack Obama began a push to overhaul state medical malpractice laws as a way to reduce unnecessary tests that drive up health care costs.<\/p>\n
‘This study is a glimpse behind the curtain of what’s happening in a doctor’s mind,’ said its leader, Dr John Flynn of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. If doctors sense you might second-guess them or cause trouble, ‘you could potentially be risking more tests being done’. Results were reported on Wednesday at an American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons conference in California.<\/p>\n
Patients expect the highest level of care and think this means the most advanced technology, Dr Flynn said. Many patients feel better when a doctor orders lots of tests – until they get the bill.<\/p>\n
Besides hurting your wallet and adding to health care costs, unnecessary tests can expose people to radiation that accumulates over a lifetime and can raise the risk of cancer. Ordinary X-rays are rarely a concern, but an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging scan, can cost US$1,000 or more. And super-sharp X-rays called CT scans involve relatively large radiation doses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CT SCANS, MRIs and other pricey imaging tests are often more for American doctor’s benefit than the patient’s, new research confirms. Roughly one-fifth of tests that bone and joint specialists order are because a doctor fears being sued, not because the patient needs them, a first-of-its-kind study in Pennsylvania suggests. The study comes a day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}