Funnily enough I agree with you but I have to disagree a little bit.
The truth is no one knows what the right level of care is even in many common situations.
Up front I'll say I'm a state and universal healthcare advocate.
But it comes with its own forms of waste.
Our first child had a borderline kidney tube measurement. We had 8 follow up scans costing the taxpayer $300 each.
Gradually I realised that the clinics had figured out a way to game the funding system, because at the level of deviation i saw I could find no research supporting the need for 8 extra ultrasound scans and in fact the only measurable risk was an increased risk of uti escalating to kidney infection which actually an ultrasound is not the best diagnostic tool for anyways.
In fact none of the doctors or technicians I talked to could coherently explain the level of risk or how the scans mitigated that risk.
What they did have was numeric guidelines and some measurement uncertainty. Plus a blank cheque to do more scans if they could justify it under current guidelines.
On the gripping hand they were $300 scans not $1200 scans like in insurance driven systems so...
The truth is no one knows what the right level of care is even in many common situations.
Up front I'll say I'm a state and universal healthcare advocate.
But it comes with its own forms of waste.
Our first child had a borderline kidney tube measurement. We had 8 follow up scans costing the taxpayer $300 each.
Gradually I realised that the clinics had figured out a way to game the funding system, because at the level of deviation i saw I could find no research supporting the need for 8 extra ultrasound scans and in fact the only measurable risk was an increased risk of uti escalating to kidney infection which actually an ultrasound is not the best diagnostic tool for anyways.
In fact none of the doctors or technicians I talked to could coherently explain the level of risk or how the scans mitigated that risk.
What they did have was numeric guidelines and some measurement uncertainty. Plus a blank cheque to do more scans if they could justify it under current guidelines.
On the gripping hand they were $300 scans not $1200 scans like in insurance driven systems so...