Beware unnecessary medical tests that waste billions of dollars every year

Why are your health insurance rates so high? And why are they constantly going higher?

A team of New York researchers has come up with at least part of the answer: unnecessary tests.

After reviewing federal medical surveys for all of 2009, researchers estimated that $6.8 billion was lost to unnecessary screenings and treatments. And they suspect that the actual amount lost is significantly higher.

On the treatment side, the biggest financial drain was cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. If doctors had prescribed generic statins before resorting to brand name drugs, it would have saved patients and their insurance providers nearly $6 billion!

And on the screening side, all sorts of unnecessary blood tests and expensive (and sometimes potentially dangerous) scanning tests are being ordered.

As one of the researchers told Bloomberg, doctors who are currently practicing came up in a culture where they were admonished if certain tests weren’t ordered. And one doctor cited legal precautions: “Nobody ever gets sued for ordering unnecessary tests.”

My rule of thumb: When my doctor recommends a test, I ask him to explain exactly what course of action he’ll recommend if the test comes back positive.

I’m not saying to avoid tests altogether, but I’ve found that when you ask your doctor that simple question, you’ll get a pretty good reading on whether or not the test is really necessary.

Sources:
“Doctors estimate $6.8 billion in unnecessary medical tests” Michelle Andrews, Bloomberg, 10/31/11, fluentnews.com