Avoid Needless Tests: Ask Your Doctor These 10 Vital Questions
ASKED by alysiak on February 22, 2008 - 7:50pm
I saw this article on MSN Health & Fitness: "10 Questions You Must Ask Your Doctor."
The point of the article is to ask the 10 vital questions that could help you avoid needless tests, and possibly save your life.
http://health.msn.com/health-topics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=10018...
Does anyone have other questions they would like to share?
Comments
EmpowHer.com also creates what we like to call advocacy sheets that women can take into their doctors to help guide them through their visits and encourage them to think independently. Here's one we've created for Heart Awareness Month.
http://empowher.com/conditions/advocacylist
In addition to tests, the sheets provide questions related to medications and symptoms. Just another tool -- like the Vital 10 questions -- to get people to take their health into their own hands.
Check out the rigorous testing one patient had to endure. The motivation for these tests, the article says is “defensive” medicine by doctors trying to avoid lawsuits; patients’ demands; a pervading belief among doctors and patients that newer, more expensive technology is better.
The most important factor, however, may be the perverse financial incentives of our current system. Ugh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/health/views/11essa.html?_r=1&ref=heal...
I think you hit two nails on their respective heads: lawsuits and financial incentives.
A doctor we knew in Dallas admitted to us that the cost of malpractice insurance was forcing him to close his small clinic. That's pretty sad.
Other doctors we have known seemed to focus more on accounting than on patient care. That's pretty bad.
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