97 Percent of ER Docs Order Unneeded Tests Out of Malpractice Fears
Nearly all emergency room doctors surveyed order pricey MRIs or CT scans their patients may not need, mainly because they fear malpractice lawsuits, according to a new report.
Of 435 ER physicians who completed the survey, 97 percent admitted to ordering some advanced imaging scans that weren't medically necessary, the findings showed.
Such scans contribute to the estimated $210 billion wasted annually on unnecessary tests, procedures and treatments, the researchers contended.
Physicians said they ordered too many imaging tests because they are worried about missing an unlikely -- but possible -- illness, and fear being sued if they don't cover all their bases, the survey revealed.
The ER docs surveyed also suspect they aren't the only staff doing this. More than 85 percent believe too many diagnostic tests are ordered in their own emergency departments, by themselves and others.
"We don't like uncertainty, and so we're driven by this culture that says if there's any doubt, we should do the test, and we don't acknowledge the potential harms of this approach," said the study's lead author Dr. Hemal Kanzaria, an emergency physician at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Beyond increasing the cost of medicine, unnecessary imaging tests also expose patients to a real risk of harm, said Kanzaria, who is also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar with support from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
An unneeded scan might find a "false positive" -- a test result that suggests a person might have a medical problem that they don't really have. The patient could end up getting biopsies, tests, and even potentially harmful treatments, for a disease they don't have, he said.
There's also the risk that an imaging scan will uncover a medical problem that isn't causing any symptoms or illness. Doctors will feel pressure to treat the condition, even if the treatment harms the patient's quality of life even more than the undetected disease did, Kanzaria added.
"I would encourage patients to ask their physicians what the chance of them having the disease that's getting worked up is," Kanzaria said. "Ask if the tests are needed. I would also encourage patients to think about both the potential benefits and the potential harms."
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No. They order tests, charge $5.00 for an aspirin pill, $1.00 for a Kleenex,to feed the Medical, Pharmaceutical, Insurance Co.conspiracy to get every single man, women, and child hooked on the money pit that Health Care in America has become.