Lots more. The explosion in the number of CT and MRI scans is a major driver of health care spending:
The number of MRI procedures per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries increased from 0.3 in 1985 to 50 in 1995 and 173 in 2004. Each new MRI unit on the market led to 733 additional MRI procedures, adding $550,000 to Medicare spending annually.
CT scans more than doubled from 235 per 1,000 in 1995 to 547 per 1,000 in 2005. Each new CT unit on the market prompted 2,224 additional CT scans and added $685,000 to the yearly Medicare bill.
Insurers are fighting back by requiring pre-authorizations prior to ordering the scans, but patients need to be educated that not all symptoms need expensive tests.
Related posts:
- The quality of CT and MRI scans vary, and how old machines can affect the treatment course
- CT scans in the ER, are emergency doctors ordering too many tests?
- CT scans
- More trouble for CT scans of the heart
- Cardiac CT scans
- Relative value units, and how the RVU payment system doesn’t allow doctors to practice good medicine
- CT scans and the ER
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{ 3 comments }
It is such a mistake to blame only the patients.
The tests are ordered by doctors. In my community, the local neurology group has their own MRI facility (how this does not violate Stark regulations, I don’t know). Every headache patient they see not only gets a brain MRI, but also an MRA and MRV, not to mention an EEG and cervical imaging. My strategy as a pcp is to refer to neurology as little as possible.
Patients think that more is better. I often talk them out of a test and later find they have gone to another doctor and had more tests/imaging done.
As a PA in a hospital ER, I have come to learn that many patients are unsatisfied by a diagnosis made based only clinical findings. For every diagnosis you are willing to make, you have to prove it by specific lab work or advanced imaging. Also in a medical litigous environment, many scans and studies are done only for CYA purpose.
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