i can’t find it now on FR, but i saw an article here about a week ago, talking about how many hospitals are doing a very high number of double scans.
...but oddly, it said this rate was almost zero in teaching hospitals.
i did find these others, including back to 2007.
i suspect that nationwide, this is an incredibly huge amount of wast and fraud, with some scans being billed for $7,000 each...
http://managinghealthcarecosts.blogspot.com/2011/06/unnecessary-double-chest-ct-scans.html
http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2007/11/26/radiation_risk/
Radiation risk
Doctors concerned about the exploding use of CT scanners
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2407632/posts
15,000 Will Die From CT Scans Done In 1 Year
finallyh found it. it seems to be a widespread problem:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2736673/posts
Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning
NyTimes.com ^ | June 17, 2011 | WALT BOGDANICH, JO CRAVEN McGINTY
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2011 5:11:42 PM by ransomnote
Long after questions were first raised about the overuse of powerful CT scans, hundreds of hospitals across the country needlessly exposed patients to radiation by scanning their chests twice on the same day, according to federal records and interviews with researchers.
Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say, yet some hospitals were doing that more than 80 percent of the time for their Medicare chest patients, according to Medicare outpatient claims from 2008, the most recent year available. The rate is typically less than 1 percent, or in some cases zero, at major university teaching hospitals. “