by Sherry Baker, Camiseta UNAM Pumas health Sciences Editor
(NaturalNews) When it concerns talking about U.S. healthcare and the economy, many of the argument is about how and if the government ought to help make sure medical care is available to everyone, regardless of income. and while the huge cost of medical care is typically a essential part of these discussions, what is rarely discussed is just why healthcare is so incredibly expensive.
It turns out, according to a new American college of Physicians (ACP) policy paper just published in the Annals of internal Medicine, that a huge amount of these costs are simply unnecessary. bottom line: up to $765 billion, which accounts for around 30 percent of U.S. healthcare costs, are identified in the paper as the result of mostly unsuitable or unnecessary tests, treatments and other services.
To put this huge financial drain on the economy in perspective, consider that health expenditures are projected to keep going up, if nothing changes in the way doctors tend to treat patients, until these costs reach practically 20 percent of the United States’ GDP by 2020. numerous economists, the authors of the new position paper state, consider this spending rate unsustainable.
Amir Qaseem, MD, director of medical policy for the ACP, points out in the paper that the trend in analyzing the use of medical services has been mainly aimed at the underuse of tests and treatments considered to be “high value.” But, Camiseta Selección de fútbol de Inglaterra increasingly, experts have developed ways to measure the value of so-called “low value” interventions that are used widely. And, it turns out, these tests often have little use except to hike up the skyrocketing costs of medical care.
The new policy paper points out, for example, that diagnostic imaging tests such as x-rays and MRIs for uncomplicated, low back pain don’t improve the health outcomes of patients. but because they are widely used, these tests — although useless for the most common, everyday sort of back pain — rack up huge medical costs for Americans. What’s more, numerous people are exposed to radiation and other potentially cancer-causing side effects of tests that they and/or their insurance companies then have to pay for even though the tests weren’t needed at all.
“We need valid, evidence-based performance Camiseta Selección de fútbol de Japón steps to decrease the overuse of tests and treatments that offer little benefit or might even cause harm,” Amir Qaseem, MD, PhD, director of medical policy for the ACP, said in a statement to the media. “Physicians and clients need to work together to pursue care that improves health, avoids harms, and eliminates wasteful practices.”
As natural news recently reported, the epidemic of over-prescribed drugs is also contributing to financial hardships on individuals and the economy as a whole. A new study published in the British medical Journal (BMJ) by Harvard researchers found company executives are unaware they could be wasting billions of their gross profits on ineffective, even harmful drugs in their health plans. They are also paying for treating the side-effects of these drugs.
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About the author:
Sherry Baker is a widely published writer whose work has appeared in Newsweek, Health, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, yoga Journal, Optometry, Atlanta, Arthritis Today, natural Healing Newsletter, OMNI, UCLA’s “Healthy Years” newsletter, mount Sinai school of Medicine’s “Focus on health Aging” newsletter, the Cleveland Clinic’s “Men’s health Advisor” newsletter and numerous others.
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