Health Care Thoughts

One of the things that makes health care so expensive in this country are the tests and procedures performed for the just in case things.

Malpractice lawsuits will examine bad outcomes and find the test or procedure that may have detected that condition.  It often leads to settlements or court victories but that is looking at the issue via hindsight.

Suppose certain symptoms could indicate a rare disease that only impacts 1 out of a million people and that the other 999,999 people get no benefit from being tested for it.  If the test can be done as part of a routine blood work up or something similar, the cost is probably not that much.  Still to find the 1 in a million possible sufferer it has to be performed 1,000,000 times.

If you are the 1 in a million person it may all seem worth it.  But is it?  Consider all the possible scenarios that require expensive testing on people with almost no chance of having a disease or condition.

In some cases the testing isn't approved by various insurance review boards, which is probably a good thing overall, however most people don't like that process, since they have been told by their doctor that such a test may help detect this rare condition.

The doctor, most likely, feels required to tell the patient about the test since failure to do so, could, in the event he/she does have the condition, constitute a failure to apply all reasonable care.

So we test and test and apply treatments which often have very little actual benefit.

Performing test which are not needed in order to avoid being second guessed is costly.  Effectively we have to test for almost every possibility even when some possibilities are extremely unlikely.

Its costly and there has to be a better way.  Maybe let doctors use their best judgment and limit second guessing.  Not likely under our legal system.