Thread: Many hospitals overuse double CT scans, data show

Many hospitals overuse double CT scans, data show

By Julie Applebyand Jordan Rau, Published: June 18

Hundreds of hospitals are routinely performing a type of chest scan that experts say should be used rarely, subjecting patients to double doses of radiation and driving up health-care costs.

In a double CT scan, patients get two imaging tests consecutively: one without dye and the other with dye injected into their veins. Providence Hospital in Northeast Washington and nearly one of every six hospitals in Virginia were among those performing double scans particularly frequently, according to the most recently published government Medicare data, from 2008.

The government is taking a closer look at scans because imaging tests are among the fastest growing procedures in health care. Medicare’s Hospital Compare Web site publishes individual hospital rates of double chest scans, along with rates for several other kinds of imaging. Medicare doesn’t restrict the use of double scans or penalize those who perform lots of them.

“Just making the information public is a fairly strong incentiveâ€

This is what is called DEFENSIVE MEDICINE and has been brought on, in large part, by greedy personal injury lawyers. The more I think about how far our society has gotten off -track, from being one where there is "liberty and justice for all" and the more we have become a culture kicked around like a soccer ball by left wing legal interests and their globalist masters----the more I can't see straight!


Molina and other experts say some smaller hospitals without radiologists on staff may be doing the double scans just to make sure they get a full package of information before sending a patient home.

They may very well be doing this just to protect themselves. I was in the hospital five years ago with a serious neck injury---which the hospitals X-ray equipment clearly showed. But since it was a trauma accident they gave me nine CT scans---and the doctors explained to me that, since they had the equipment, they had to use it or RUN THE RISK OF LAWSUIT. If my accident had occured in a smaller town, where such equipment was not available, the docctors said likely the x ray would have been sufficient. A recent Harvard study put the cost of this kind of defensive medicine at over $60 billion.

I know there is plenty of Medicare fraud in our medical services. But there is also this unremitting pressure from trial lawyers. I think true justice has disappeared in this country, and heaven help you if you don't belong to a group with political clout also.