Got Radiation?
Overuse of CT scans needlessly exposes patients to radiation, write Walt Bogdanich and Jo Craven McGinty in The New York Times:
In 2008, about 75,000 patients received double scans, one using iodine contrast to check blood flow, and one that did not. "If you do both, you bill for both," Dr. Pentecost said.Radiologists say one scan or the other is needed depending on the patient's condition, but rarely both. Double scanning is also common among privately insured patients who tend to be younger.
Double scans expose patients to extra radiation while heaping millions of dollars in extra costs on an already overburdened Medicare program. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays, so two scans are twice that amount.
"The primary concern relates to radiation exposure," said Dr. James A. Brink, chief of diagnostic radiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where double scans accounted for only a fraction of 1 percent of cases. He added: "It is incumbent upon all of us to limit it to the amount needed to make a diagnosis."
MRI scans won't expose people to as much radiation as CT scans do.
I'm no doctor, but there might be legitimate reasons to scan someone twice in the same day.
Iconoclast at June 18, 2011 4:12 PM
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