Doctors order tests. Lots of them. Lab tests are to medical centers what the liquor concession is to a restaurant: it’s where the real bucks are made. Hospitals lose a lot of money but they can thrive on profits generated from laboratory studies. Hospitals are often very solicitous of doctors who can decide be capricious about where they admit their patients. Obviously, any patient that “comes in the house” can generate lots of ancillary lab tests and therefore dollars for that hospital.
Unfortunately, a great many lab tests that are ordered yield little or no significant information. As a Department Chairman, I would find reams and reams of test results or radiographic studies in the patient’s hospital records that no one - not a soul - had even looked at. So I created a litmus test for requesting any lab work. I ask myself: What do I expect to learn from ordering this test? How is it going to change the way I’m treating this patient currently? How do I plan to act on these data? When I have determined that the results of a test will alter my thinking or therapy, then I get it. It’s amazing how many unnecessary blood draws, laboratory results, and senseless, expensive tests can be avoided if we subject them to that preliminary assessment. Be discriminate in your ordering of lab tests.
Most of the cannot even understand what the doctor saying it is very important for the doctor to make sure that patient is listening and understanding the prescription!!!
ReplyDeleteDr Hulda Clark
i always do this. hehehe
ReplyDeletealthough not have the plan, they still get data.. why?
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