Law May Do Little to Help Curb Unnecessary Care

By GINA KOLATA
NYT

Dr. Robert Colton, an internist in Boca Raton, Fla., has a problem, and he knows it. His patients come in wanting, sometimes demanding, tests and treatments that are unnecessary, just adding to the nation’s huge health care bill. He even has patients, he says, who come in and report that their chief complaint is, “I need an M.R.I.”

And what does Dr. Colton do?

“I do the damn test,” he said. “There is no incentive for me, Rob Colton, to reduce overutilization. If the person wants it, what are you going to do, say no?”

And the new health care legislation, he says, is not going to make a bit of difference.

To truly change the nation’s chronic overuse of medical care, there will have to be a substantial change in the way patients think about health care, how medicine is practiced and how it is paid for, economists and doctors say.

(More here.)