Three important steps to avoid being misdiagnosed

Getting the right diagnosis can be a matter of life and death.

But despite how important this is, especially when doctors are telling you to take dangerous meds or undergo risky procedures, a medical diagnosis is often wrong.

A new study out of the Mayo Clinic has found that easily over 20 percent of patients who came there for a second opinion had been misdiagnosed by their primary care doctors. Such errors, the researchers say, contribute to around 10 percent of deaths and up to 17 percent of serious adverse events in those hospitalized.

There are, however, three important steps you can take to keep yourself and your loved ones as safe as possible from falling victim to these kinds of mistakes.

A tragedy of errors
Mayo Clinic researchers analyzed the records of 286 patients who had sought a second opinion from doctors there. It turned out that 62 received a diagnosis that was “distinctly different” from what their original doctor told them.

For 188 others, their original diagnosis was only partly correct. In other words, only 36 patients had received a completely accurate diagnosis.

That kind of batting average wouldn’t even get you picked for your office team!

While the Mayo Clinic study only analyzed patients who came to that hospital for a second opinion, the topic has been previously looked at with much wider implications. And the results have been even more frightening.

Several years ago, doctors from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas at Houston estimated that diagnostic mistakes happen to around 12 million adults in the U.S. every year. And at least half of those errors “could potentially be harmful.”

Then there was the “groundbreaking” report issued two years ago by the Institute of Medicine, finding that every single one of us will “experience at least one diagnostic error.” And many of those mistakes will come with “devastating consequences.”

And 18 years before that, the IOM issued a report called “To Err is Human” that said close to 100,000 people die from “preventable medical errors” every year.

While it doesn’t look like things have improved very much since that first study came out, all this research has pinpointed some of the reasons why mistakes are so rampant in health care.

For example:

Too much reliance on tests, often done just because doctors are “practicing defensive medicine” to protect themselves from being sued. Experts say that you have to “order the right test” and have it read correctly.
Confusing and mistaken reports caused by dependence on electronic medical records.
Harried doctors who are forced to spend more time filling out forms than seeing their patients.

But despite the many ways mistakes can happen, there are still three important things you can do to protect yourself.

#1: Be sure to ask your doctor questions! That may sound simple, but many doctors believe it’s key to helping your physician understand your medical issues and make a more accurate diagnosis.

#2: Don’t assume tests, no matter how high-tech they are, are always right. Studies have found, for example, that pathology results can be wrong 40 percent of the time.

#3: And perhaps the most important thing you can do when facing a serious health issue is to get a second opinion.

To get an unbiased diagnosis, don’t spend the whole office visit discussing what your first doctor told you. Bring your test results, tell him your family history and anything else that may help, but let him come to his own conclusions without influencing him.

As one doctor commenting on the study said, “Fresh eyes catch mistakes.” But those fresh eyes work even better when they’re not clouded over!

“20 percent of patients with serious conditions are first misdiagnosed, study says” Lenny Bernstein, April 4, 2017, The Washington Post, washingtonpost.com