[General Spine] When Doctors Own Or Lease MRI, Back Scans And Surgery More Likely

[Justin]

When doctors own or lease MRI equipment, their patients are more likely to receive scans for low back pain. Patients of orthopedists are more apt to undergo back surgery as well, according to a study published online in Health Services Research.....

When Doctors Own Or Lease MRI, Back Scans And Surgery More Likely (click here for the full article at Medical News Today)

[Gilbert P]

Very Interesting
This is happening to our local hospital right now ,were several MD own the MRI machine and rent space in the hospital, The Hospital is now getting their own machine and the competition begins,

Its a conflict of interest and the MD are making a very large profit.
A law suit is in progress!

Gil

[spinches]

My impression is that doctors in the U.S. don't refer patients for MRI's nearly as much as they should. Many patients, including myself, are advised to wait and see, or are sent for physical therapy after accidents or sudden onset of back symptoms. In my personal experience and that of other people I know, the MRI revealed anatomical damage that would not have responded to conservative care, and the delay in surgery could have resulted in worse outcomes for the patient. In countries with more patient-centered medical systems, such as Japan, the rate of MRI referrals is much higher than in the U.S.

The surgeons I have consulted in the U.S. have behaved as if they were terrified of being accused of performing "excessive surgery," and have consistently told me they would not offer me surgery until I developed symptoms of spinal cord damage. They all predicted I would get to this point, and also told me that surgery would probably not completely reverse the damage once it had developed, but they would not do "preventative surgery."One of them offered to refer me for another MRI in six months, but another told me he would not do so in less than 3 years!

Physicians in the U.S. are increasingly portrayed as profit mongers who order excessive tests and perform excessive treatment in order to make more money. The accusers are in most cases the worst offenders in the profiteering sector, namely the insurance companies. They target physicians because the insurance companies do not want to pay for the medical services they supposedly cover in their contracts with patients. These are the same people who like to publicize research results that can be used to limit the range of treatments patients can receive. For example, they quote research as indicating that ADR is no better than fusion, even though the research articles cited actually were designed to test whether ADR was inferior or (at best) equal to fusion, not whether it was superior. The results show ADR as superior to fusion in terms of how well the surgery is tolerated by patients, and how well patients do the first 2 years after surgery. These results tend to be very important to people contemplating having surgery, but are dismissed by insurance companies as well as by some of the researchers themselves, who are primarily interested in long-term outcomes.

Newspapers are also in financial trouble and they try to attract customers by finding ways to create the appearance of corruption. Physicians in this country are accustomed to making a lot of money and I know they are dismayed by the reduction in their income in recent years. That does not mean that financial incentives are the primary reason why they refer patients for MRI's or why they subsequently perform surgeries on those patients.