This is primarily defensive medicine.
For years, we had our mouths xrayed. And years later, they provided a lead shield for the front of you.
In a free market that would drive the price of brain scanners down.
But when federal regulations and the threat of lawsuits FORCE insurance companies to cover it at whatever it costs, there is no downward pressure on the costs
No worries. The deathpanels will soon determine who is worthy of a scan.
I went in because of a headache. CT scan found an tumor that required three surgeries to correct.
They showed that I had multiple, bilateral temporal skull fractures, which explained why my head hurt so bad.
Then, I got the medical bills and got another headache.
I’m 51 and in excellent health. Retired Navy vet. Always had a flight physical every year from age 22-44. I still get an annual physical. My birth month is in January, so I had recently my physical with my doc. Background info - In November 2013, I started to get headaches at night and would wake up with a nasty one I’d say 5 out of 7 days/week. Mentioned it to the Doc. He sent me to get a CT scan. By the time I got home, the Radiologist had tried to call me in the car 3 times (ringer was off) and he was talking to my wife when I walked in the door. Turns out I have a grade 3 arteriovenous malformation (AVM). I am now being treated at Johns Hopkins and I get the great privilege of having a full team of neurosurgeons from Johns Hopkins to perform a 12 hour operation next month to remove it. I know there are frivolous tests being performed on people, but I will say that if you have head pain, or headaches, don’t mess around. It could be serious. I’m lucky I got it diagnosed when I did.
I work IT in healthcare. One day I was in a Radiologist’s office where they read studies. He had received a scan for someone in the ER complaining of headaches. He jokingly questioned why they were in the ER, and how they were probably a “drug seeker”, until the saw a 10cm ‘round spot’ on their brain. The whole room fell silent for a couple of minutes, and his mood changed completely. The patient was only 23 years old. I thought he was gonna cry, as he was so upset for them.
I suppose the people that came up with this study would have this patient NOT get a scan?
I am reminded of a Dilbert comic where the IT man tells him of a new policy in which draft documents are not permitted to be printed on the color printer. Then two months later, the IT man removes the color printer on the grounds that “it is only rarely used.”
The same thing applies to MRI and CT scanners. They used to be very rare and seldom used, but as they gained in popularity, the technology significantly improved, and they became popular diagnostic tools, commonly available, at far less “per patient” cost.
Only ten or so years ago, some cities even had programs in which otherwise healthy policemen and firemen would be scanned, to create a health baseline for them. Then if they were scanned later, it would be easy to check for changes that might indicate problems.
But even with the baseline checks, they discovered a lot of *potential* problems that could be treated early and prevent severe illness or even death. One female police captain, for example, was discovered to have a slow growing but very dangerous kidney tumor that was still small.
So discontinuing the popular use of this equipment comes across as a “penny wise, pound foolish” idea, by number crunchers who only care about short term savings, not the lives by those affected.
This seems to be their “modus operandi”, of putting out recommendations to stop testing for things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, etc. They seem to have the attitude that if someone over 60 dies because they didn’t get a common test, then “que sera sera”. Not our problem.
Even in this article, they note that between 1-3% of brain scans of headache patients uncover a malignant growth or problem with the blood vessels in the brain.
While they might not care if 3 out of 100 people have a life threatening problem, I would bet that those 3 people and their families would certainly prefer knowing, so they could do things to prevent it.
A bad migraine can mimic signs of a stroke.