The impact of unnecessary testing and treatment on patients

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From an October 2011 article at KevinMD.com

Ask most patients, and they say their doctor has a good reason for ordering tests and prescribing treatments.  Turns out their doctor may secretly disagree.  That’s the conclusion of a new study. The implications are more than a bit disturbing.

Researchers from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy conducted a survey of more than six hundred physicians. Forty-two percent of family doctors admitted that patients in their own practice receive too much care – meaning that the doctor was ordering too many blood tests and x-rays and prescribing too many treatments.  Only six percent said they were receiving too little. The study was published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Read the rest of The impact of unnecessary testing and treatment on patients on KevinMD.com.

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