Hospitals Performed Needless Double CT Scans, Records Show
By WALT BOGDANICH and JO CRAVEN McGINTY
Long after questions were first raised about the overuse of powerful CT scans, hundreds of hospitals across the country needlessly exposed patients to radiation by scanning their chests twice on the same day, according to federal records and interviews with researchers.
Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say, yet some hospitals were doing that more than 80 percent of the time for their Medicare chest patients, according to Medicare outpatient claims from 2008, the most recent year available. The rate is typically less than 1 percent, or in some cases zero, at major university teaching hospitals.
Published: June 17, 2011
Scanning Twice
A federal database of Medicare outpatient records shows how often hospitals performed two CT chest scans on the same patient in one day. Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say.
Published: June 17, 2011 Scanning Twice A federal database of Medicare outpatient records shows how often hospitals performed two CT chest scans on the same patient in one day. Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say.
Thanks for the above-referenced data, Don Berwick!
Thanks for the above-referenced data, Don Berwick!
Program Offering Waivers for Health Law Is Ending
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it was shutting down a program that had provided exemptions from the new health care law for many employers and labor unions offering bare-bones insurance coverage to workers.
No more applications will be accepted after Sept. 22, federal health officials said.
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