In case you haven’t heard about the overinsured, researchers at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown find that, “More than one-third of U.S. adults undergo diagnostic tests for
conditions for which they have no symptoms, which adds to health care
costs and increases patient stress.” The direct costs of these tests are up to $194 million. “If
20% of EKGs produce false positives — a rate estimated by other
studies — then follow-up tests would costs about $683 million.” We’re
already up to $877 million. This joins a stack of research from Dartmouth on wasted medical spending.