American physicians dole out lots of unnecessary medical care to their patients. They prescribe things like antibiotics for people with viral infections, order expensive CT scans for patients with transitory back pain, and obtain screening EKGs for people with no signs or symptoms of heart disease. Some critics even accuse physicians of ordering such services to bolster their revenue.
So what happens when uninsured patients make it to the doctor’s office with coughs, low back pain, or other problems? Do physicians stop ordering all these unnecessary tests and services, out of recognition that most of these patients won’t be able to pay?
A study out of Harvard by Michael Barnett and colleagues provides a rigorous answer to this question. The researchers evaluated how often patients received any of a slew of unnecessary services. They compared patients with private insurance to those with Medicaid (which generally reimburses physicians much less generously than private insurance), and also to those with no insurance.
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