Medical Overtreatment May Be Making Us Sicker

(AP)  More medical care won't necessarily make you healthier - it may make you sicker. It's an idea that technology-loving Americans find hard to believe.

Anywhere from one-fifth to nearly one-third of the tests and treatments we get are estimated to be unnecessary, and avoidable care is costly in more ways than the bill: It may lead to dangerous side effects.

It can start during birth, as some of the nation's increasing C-sections are triggered by controversial fetal monitors that signal a baby is in trouble when really everything's fine.

It extends to often futile intensive care at the end of the life.

In between:

• Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, much of it from repeated CT scans. Too many scans increase the risk of cancer.

• Thousands who get stents for blocked heart arteries should have tried medication first.

• Doctors prescribe antibiotics tens of millions of times for viruses such as colds that the drugs can't help.

• As major health groups warn of the limitations of prostate cancer screening, even in middle age, one-third of men over 75 get routine PSA tests despite guidelines that say most are too old to benefit. Millions of women at low risk of cervical cancer get more frequent Pap smears than recommended; millions more have been screened even after losing the cervix to a hysterectomy.

• Back pain stands out as the No. 1 overtreated condition, from repeated MRI scans that can't pinpoint the trouble to spine surgery on people who could have gotten better without it. About one in five who gets that first back operation will wind up having another in the next decade.

Overtreatment means someone could have fared as well or better with a lesser test or therapy, or maybe even none at all. Avoiding it is less about knowing when to say no, than knowing when to say, "Wait, doc, I need more information!"

The Associated Press combed hundreds of pages of studies and quizzed dozens of specialists to examine the nation's most overused practices. Medical groups are starting to get the message. Efforts are under way to help doctors ratchet back avoidable care and help patients take an unbiased look at the pros and cons of different options before choosing one.

"This is not, I repeat not, rationing," said Dr. Steven Weinberger of the American College of Physicians, which this summer begins publishing recommendations on overused tests, starting with low back pain.

It's trying to strike a balance, to provide appropriate care rather than the most care. Rare are patients who recognize they've crossed that line.

"Yet let me tell you, with additional tests and procedures comes significant harm," said Dr. Bernard Rosof, who heads projects by the nonprofit National Quality Forum and an American Medical Association panel to identify and decrease overuse.

"It's patient education that's going to be extremely important if we're going to make this happen, so people begin to understand less is often better," he said.

Not even doctors' families are immune.

A hospital appropriately did six CT scans to check Dr. Steven Birnbaum's 22-year-old daughter for injury after she was hit by a car. But the next day, Molly had an abdominal scan repeated as a precaution despite having no symptoms. When a doctor ordered still another, "I blew a gasket," said the New Hampshire radiologist, who put a stop to more.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »

[jlkinkona]

what I think is happening here is that the insurance carriers no longer want to cover some of these procedures and so they are relying on mainstream media to convince people that the procedures are not needed. Notice? that the article DOES NOT speak up AGAINST any drug? WHY? Because mainstream media makes big bucks with drug advertisements. I mean real BIG BUCKS. But they don't make money from cat scans or c sections.

[jlkinkona]

Most of the drugs being PUSHED upon us are nothing but SCAM drugs that actually give you the disease that they are supposed to prevent. The best SCAM drug is the Cholesterol-lowering drug which deprive the heart of CoQ10 and CAUSE CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE. I'll bet the heart surgeons made a KILLING from this drug with all those people that had to have surgery for CHF because they were taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, eh? Next SCAM drug are those PROTON PUMP INHIBITORS that work by killing off the stomach acid which then causes DEADLY bacteria to grow and KILL YOU.
Another SCAM drug are those bone drugs. You know the one that if you take it long enough, you can get esophageal cancer? The best way to be healthy is to STAY AWAY FROM THOSE ALL DRUGS PRESCRIBED BY YOUR DRUG PUSHING DOCTOR !!!

[jlenzer1]

Regarding "there should be a reference book": A good place to start is my colleague's book, Overtreated: How Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, by Shannon Brownlee.

[bruce789]

There should be a reference book or website for doctors to know what the best patient outcome procedures are. When these are ignored, someone from the medical society or government agency should stop by and say, why aren't you following these better treatments? No patriotism these days in the sense of life better for all, always my team, team player. I paid cash for health my whole life and had a lot of trouble with colds, weak type it seamed. It got so bad that I finally dawned on the idea of an ear, nose, and throat doc. After a 2,000 procedure to open a sinus valve that falsely closed to harmless pollen, I have never had problem with colds. Found a chiropractor that solved back problems and family doc that refused to prescribe antibiotics was right and improved health.

[rf35]

I think the biggest overtreatment is in prescription drugs. Even as the effectiveness of certain medications are being called into question, doctors are still prescribing them and people still demanding them. It seems healthcare today is all about doing a dozen tests, then throwing the latest fashionable drug at the patient. Thing is, it's aften as much the patient's fault as the doctor's. People come in demanding medications they might not need and the docs will write the prescription just to shut them up.

[proofistruth]

I fear the love of money drives the standard of health care in the U$. Profit is the single motivation behind far too many procedures.
It hurts me that no one, not even the reporter, mentioned that 80% of the men in this world think crushing off the most private, the most secret and the most sensitive part of a baby boy's body is madness. Here is a procedure that is unthinkable for four out of five men and boys on the planet, but in the U$A it is nearly forced on new parents, to say nothing of the child. Every facet of the American Medical Industry stinks of greed.

[tsigili]

Well, whether it is making us sicker or not, it is certainly lining the pockets of the medical profession, and now the public is going to be paying that tab even more, with ObamaCare.

[random_radar]

National health care will end the problem of too much treatment. This article is the leading edge of the statist propaganda effort to convince you that less health care is better.

[pollroller1]

I am in my 70s I eat mostly vegetables. Very little meat. I don't smoke. I don't take any meds. Not even aspirin. And I feel Great!!!!!

[elvigop]

No where in the article do you mention "attorneys" ... yet they do more to drive up costs than any other group I know of. No wonder doctors check and double check with the likes John Edwards hovering around. Get rid of the attorneys and you will get rid of too many tests and so-called over-treatments. Now, try some in depth reporting.