» Why Are Screening Colonoscopies So Expensive?.
Interesting blog post with some hard truths about U.S. medical care.
Excerpt:
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Americans have a preoccupation with technology and procedures in health care instead of consultation and collaboration with their health care providers. It is because of this that the US health care system pays it’s doctors far more to perform procedures then it does for them to be doctors. A typical gastroenterologist gets reimbursed about $150 to $250 to see a new patient and to perform a history and physical, review medical records, determine the most likely diagnoses, and formulate a treatment plan. This is called BEING A DOCTOR. But this same specialist gets paid several times this initial cost to perform a colonoscopy which might take all of 5 to 10 minutes from the time he or she enters the room to the completion of the post procedure dictation (seriously). This is why the US has so many specialists, MRI machines, hospitals, etc and expensive and excessive health care is not just limited to emergencies or complex conditions.
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