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America's Doctors Are Performing Expensive Procedures That Don't Work (vox.com)
"The proportion of medical procedures unsupported by evidence may be nearly half," writes a professor of public policy at Brown University. An anonymous reader quotes his article in Vox:
The recent news that stents inserted in patients with heart disease to keep arteries open work no better than a placebo ought to be shocking. Each year, hundreds of thousands of American patients receive stents for the relief of chest pain, and the cost of the procedure ranges from $11,000 to $41,000 in US hospitals. But in fact, American doctors routinely prescribe medical treatments that are not based on sound science.
The stent controversy serves as a reminder that the United States struggles when it comes to winnowing evidence-based treatments from the ineffective chaff. As surgeon and health care researcher Atul Gawande observes, "Millions of people are receiving drugs that aren't helping them, operations that aren't going to make them better, and scans and tests that do nothing beneficial for them, and often cause harm"... Estimates vary about what fraction of the treatments provided to patients is supported by adequate evidence, but some reviews place the figure at under half.
The stent controversy serves as a reminder that the United States struggles when it comes to winnowing evidence-based treatments from the ineffective chaff. As surgeon and health care researcher Atul Gawande observes, "Millions of people are receiving drugs that aren't helping them, operations that aren't going to make them better, and scans and tests that do nothing beneficial for them, and often cause harm"... Estimates vary about what fraction of the treatments provided to patients is supported by adequate evidence, but some reviews place the figure at under half.
Quite corrupt, I agree, but that has nothing to do with "unrestrained free enterprise", which we don't have. If we had that, health care provisioning would not be tied to employers and their selection of insurance plans due to government mandates and tax incentives that distort the market. If we had that, I could do proper comparison shopping for medical goods and services based on price and quality. If we had that, I could research what drugs would best treat my condition(s) and buy them without having to go through an agent for a government supported monopoly on medical services. The list goes on. Medicine in the US is about as far from "unrestrained" as you can get without having Single Payer.
Doctors in the US over-treat illnesses, use outdated and ineffective treatments and generally run up the costs of medicine.
Running up the costs is an inherent problem with for-profit medicine.
The last time I went to a doctor, it was for a broken arm. They wanted to do full blood panel and urine tests and follow-up appointments for those. I asked them what for, and they said that they always had to do that if there weren't recent results on file. I asked whether it would change the treatment of the broken arm from a sling to something else, and the doctor said no, but it could discover unrelated issues. Well, I was not there for unrelated issues or to look for could.
I ended up switching doctors, because of the money grab.
Fuck the doctors and their affiliations.
Pointless procedures? Infant circumcision comes to mind. Medically worthless, known to reduce man's sexual capacity, occasionally very destructive or even fatal. Without any doubt, it is a heinous violation of one's essential human right to bodily integrity.
Circumcision is child abuse.
In the UK, where the NHS is the only real game in town and health insurance is a national govt. system, doctors are allocated budgets for the numbers of patients that they have enrolled on their books. It's in their interests to spend as little as possible on keeping their patients as healthy as possible in order to conserve their budgets. The NHS is one of the best health services in the world in terms of outcomes for per capita spending. Well, that's the last time I heard. The current UK right-wing* administration are doing their best to wreck it.
*right-wing in the UK is still thankfully far left of the Democrats in the USA.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Avoiding a cost is just as good as making a profit, if someone else is paying.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons