Posted on 02/01/2005 7:45:22 AM PST by neverdem
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Well on that we certainly agree. I'd venture that someone is always out to make a buck.
IIRC, there was an article in the NY Times recently about how the whole "scanning" industry had collapsed..an economic wastland ..sounds to me like an effort to gainmarketshare through fear-mongering..
Good point.
The problem is with "anyone who EVER smoked"..I'm 57..started smoking when I went into the service, everyone did back then.. at 21, quit when I got out, at 24..haven't touched ANY tobacco since, and am in great health..now I should worry?..seems toi me I have a greater risk of being hit by a piece of frozen excrement falling from an airplane..
I look forward to reading any information you want to share!
Yeah, I got no problem with that. My problem comes when they expect me to pay for it, which is clearly what this article is pushing. This is how incremental socialism works... it's "for the children" or for old sick people, ad infinitum, until all citizens are subject-slaves of the state.
I would have gladly paid the fee to have him screened had we even known about the problem and the test, especially considering our family history. And when you consider that the emergency surgery to save him was the same surgery that would have been performed to repair the aneurysm BEFORE it burst, the early screening would not only have likely saved his life, but cost significanly less when done on a non-emergency basis. Consider further, that since the blood lost prior to surgery was significant, there was no guarantee that if he would have survived, he would not have suffered brain or other organ damage. I suspect that given the choice paying for a screening test AND surgical repair as a preventative measure versus paying for the emergency response and care, even the insurance company would have favored paying early.
To all the statisticians on this thread certain that these deaths are insignificant: May your children have the joy of a loving grandfather to care for, nurture, play with, teach, and just plain love them. Mine do not.
Who gets rich off of these tests? Families whose loved ones will live as a result.
While I do share you skepticism about the tendancy for recommendations like this to be over used in the practice of defensive medicine, funded by the public, or restricted by the insurance industry, the dissemination of this knowledge to those like me, who may have a genetic predisposition to this problem or others who may have environmentally induced risk factors that elevate their risk of instant death is potentially life saving.
And don't be too quick to conclude the that money isn't well spent. As is often said: "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later ... either way you're gonna pay."
Yeah, that's fair. And it is also fair for us to call them out on trying to profiteer by creating health scares.
My doctor said he wouldn't think of touching it until it was 5 cm,that we should just monitor it from time to time. He seemed to think that the surgery would be very risky and not necessary until and unless it grows.
I don't mind saying that this makes me a little apprehensive.
So you're a smoker?
To get errors in the screening process, if you're talking about the actual sonogram, would require your sonographer to be blind. The diameter of the aorta is measured, it's either normal, borderline enlarged or there's an aneurysm.
P.S. I've never met a blind sonographer.
That was in reference to whole-body CT scanning, which people paid premium prices for out-of-pocket. The ultrasound industry has not collapsed; quite the contrary. There are not enough trained, credentialed untrasound techs to meet the growing demand.
ah..thanks for correcting my stupidity..course, in my defense.. I just scan the Times..
In the article itself... 9,000 people a year die from it, and because of that they want to screen 14 million? The chances of having this problem are 0.064%, or over 1 in 1555, and that's just of the narrow target range of specific individuals most likely to be affected. To recommend 14 million scans (and presumably another 2 million a year or so as new men reach that age) for such an unlikely probability, does not logically follow, unless there is a financial benefit for one party or another in having so many scans done.
It is???
Damn! I need to raise my fees. :-)
Medicare pays a global fee of $87.94.
OK, films in hand we went to a Cardiac & Vascular surgeon who mentioned that by looking at the films from both MRI'S it had gone from 2.7 to a 4.8 which is nearing a dangerous point.
Of course both of us were dumbfounded, because we were never told that an aneurysm showed up on the first test. We have since learned to ask for a copy of the results of ALL tests taken.
I won't go further about this because it is not helpful information and that is what I want to explain here.
We were told that there are two ways this can be fixed, both required surgery. The first has been done for the past 20 years and proved to be successful, but, was quite complex and had a longer and slower recovery period. The newer less evading, and faster recovery rate was two years old, but lacked much data for it's success.
After the vascular doctor consulted with a number of doctors and the manufactures of this device called a stint, it was decided that my husband who is 75 years old was a good candidate for this new surgery and it was performed last Sept.
All went well for two months, and then my husband started getting pains in his legs. We went to the Vascular Surgeons office and a ultra sound was performed where they saw nothing wrong so they sent him to a back doctor.
Again this doctor couldn't find anything. Slowly the pain got worse and he was walking with a cane. He could take no more than ten steps and he had to stop.
I won't go into how we happen to go back to the Vascular doctor two months later, but they found at that time he had very little blood circulating in his right leg, and the stint was bent.
He went for surgery a second surgery the first of this year,where they had to open the one stint add an additional one to it and run that across his abdomen into the other leg, because the stint for that one had a blood clot in it.
It is now a month after his surgery and things seem fine, but of course, it is to soon to know if this one has be successful. I pray it is. Would we do this again, I doubt it. There are no guarantee's even the second one will work. We are very sorry we didn't have the first and successful operation.
Two things I would suggest, are: ask doctors for copies of your tests, they're yours and you have a right to copies of them and more important, ask your doctor how many times he has performed the surgery he is suggesting.
WEll you just stated the results which by your analysis are NOT skewed since they posted the numbers
It is up to the individuals involved or at risk to make that decision
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