HIGH TECH MEANS HIGH COST: PATIENTS WOULD PICK AND CHOOSE WHICH TESTS THEY WANTED TO TAKE
In many cases, patients would pick and choose which tests they wanted to take, as recommended by their doctors. Frequently, patients would have every test performed, even the same one several times. In this way, they would feel they were benefiting from the latest in medical technology, in addition to knowing that they were participating in something really new and different. And doctors would suggest a whole battery of tests not only because they stood to benefit from them financially but also because they feared making a misdiagnosis, which might result in a malpractice lawsuit. Therefore, most physicians preferred to perform tests sooner, rather than later, to cover all the bases.
Everyone was thrilled with this arrangement: doctors received their fees, the patients were reimbursed by their insurance companies. Everyone, that is, except the insurance industry.
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