Good Medicine: When to Say No to Your Doctor

Forbes Magazine
November 30, 2009

When it comes to financial threats to our country, President Obama says nothing even comes close to spiraling health care costs, expected to hit $2.5 trillion this year. Legislators are struggling to come up with health reform plans that cover millions more people without boosting the deficit.

One obvious place that Congress could look for savings: the waste already embedded in the medical system. Doctors like to believe that the vast majority of what they do is grounded in solid science. If only it were true...

...Wasteful medicine can be profitable. "Every time you isolate a place where we are wasting money and there is something we can do about it, it takes money out of someone's pocket," says Wendy Everett, who heads New England Healthcare Institute, a nonprofit research outfit.

Link to Full Article: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1130/health-arthritis-stents-fainting-whe…