In 1996, a task force of independent healthcare experts recommended that doctors stop giving urine tests to people who did not show symptoms of a urinary tract infection. The test has “no benefit,” since even a positive result for elevated bacteria levels does not mean the patient is unhealthy, research shows.
The recommendation, like many others, was essentially ignored. Today the government spends about $1 billion annually for almost 15% of seniors on Medicare to get the test.
There are several dozen and possibly hundreds of such “low-value care” treatments – medical practices that have little or no clinical benefit, or which have a risk that outweighs their potential benefit, according to medical literature. They include Vitamin D blood tests and MRIs for mild lower-back pain. In all, more than one-third of Medicare beneficiaries receive a low-value intervention every year, costing taxpayers several billion dollars.
“This is waste that comes from subjecting patients to care that, according to sound science and the patients’ own preferences, cannot possibly help them – care rooted in outmoded habits, supply-driven behaviors, and ignoring science,” Donald Berwick, who headed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under President Barack Obama, wrote in a landmark 2012 study.
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