summary 3/2/09

Tarek Edelbi
3/3/09
Summary

In this article they discussed the quality of medical scans. Over 95 million high tech scans are done every year including CT, M.R.I and PET scans, which can cost approximately $100 billion a year which $14 billion is paid for by Medicare. The doctors were explaining that you will be paying the same price for a scan that may come from a 10 year old machine that you will be paying for one that uses recent technologies. Scanners that are a decade old lack tremendous technological advances than the more recent scanners, and can shift the decision making when it comes to surgeries and treatments, making many of them unnecessary. The article also explains that some doctors will refer patients to scanning centers that they own to profit from them as well, while most of them are not even accredited, which will be earning them an additional profit of a half a million to a million dollars a year. This issue will be resolved by an aspect of a wide-ranging Medicare law passed last year which will go into effect in 2012; Medicare will pay only for scans done at accredited centers. The bottom line is know where you’re getting your scans from and make sure that they are done on updated scanners which are reviewed by credible doctors.