Would you believe that about 30 percent of health spending in the United States in 2009 -- about $750 billion -- was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administration costs, fraud and other problems? That’s what a government advisory panel said Thursday, according to a story at webmd.com. And doctors agree.
In April nine doctors' organizations -- including the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Cardiology – all 375,000 physicians, launched an effort to reduce unnecessary medical tests and treatments, saving costs and cutting back on patients' exposure to stressful and sometimes dangerous procedures, Jeffrey Young reported.
I can attest to this. After going through major cancer surgery, “just to be safe,” my oncologist recently told me that maybe I’d gone too far. And I’ve been very interested in the recent stories that have come out against just such aggressive treatment for non-invasive breast cancers (mine was Stage 0). It seems we’re subjecting women (and men, too, with prostate cancer) to painful, most likely unnecessary procedures, all in the name of caution.
A recent survey in Norway found that 15 to 25 percent of breast cancers found by mammogram were being treated unnecessarily and “calculated that for every 2,500 women offered mammograms over 10 years, one breast-cancer death was averted, but six to 10 women were subjected to surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy unnecessarily,” Melinda Beck revealed.
Other tests that are ordered that are often not needed are heart imaging stress tests for patients without coronary symptoms, and somewhat more controversial, in terms of treatment, stopping, in end-stage patients who have not responded to multiple therapies and are ineligible for experimental treatments.
So where is this all taking us? If you talk to doctors, they mention malpractice, a word they live in fear of, judging by my dentist husband. So test, test, test. I guess you can’t really blame them.
Perhaps the advent of electronic health records will make the medical world a little more secure, when physicians have the benefit of trading information with other providers seeing the same patient. And, consumers can also take charge by asking, “Is this test really necessary?”
Intimidating, perhaps, to question your doctor’s expertise, but sadly, crucial, if healthcare is going to continue to be around, and affordable, for all.
Edited by
Amanda Ciccatelli
