Unnecessary Medical Care: Consumers Are A “Powerful Force,” Too
One of the points of contention in healthcare reform is whether it will do enough to control costs. Forget about the Congressional Budget Office’s optimistic outlook, as it discounts the Medicare “doc fix,” which, when factored in, will erase any supposed deficit reduction.
Reform doesn’t do very much to change the underlying structure of our health system, which continues to pay more for quantity of medical services, rather than shift the focus to value and quality.
Sharon Begley, writing in Newsweek, offers some sensible suggestions on what we can do control costs. Better incorporating the best clinical evidence into their medical decisions would help. She cites the continued, and possibly unnecessary, use of back surgery, knee surgery, vertebroplasties, and angioplasties, despite mounting evidence that they’re being overused. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
