Overtreated Poll

Reuters:

In a new poll of primary care physicians, nearly half of them said their patients received too much medical care and more than a quarter said they were practicing more aggressively than they'd like to.
That could mean ordering more tests, prescribing more drugs or diagnosing people with diseases, although they would never have experienced any symptoms.
On the other hand, just six percent of doctors believed their patients were getting too little care.
"Physicians at the frontline of medical care are telling us that their patients are getting too much care," said Dr. Brenda Sirovich.

...Excessive tests may also lead to diagnosing conditions that would never have caused any problem in the first place, such as a slowly developing prostate cancer or a slightly elevated blood pressure.Yet after such a diagnosis, it's difficult for doctors not to proceed to treatment, which may cause side effects.
"When you do anything to somebody, whether it is an intervention or a test, you are putting them in to the healthcare system in a way that exposes them to risk," said Sirovich. "Unnecessary care is potentially harmful."
REIMBURSEMENT MODEL TO BLAME?
So why would doctors order tests that they themselves believe are excessive?
Three reasons stood out in the survey, which is based on a random sample of U.S. doctors: fear of malpractice lawsuits, performance measures and too little time to just listen to patients.
Four in 10 also believed that other primary care physicians would order fewer tests if those tests didn't provide extra income. (Of course, just three percent thought that financial considerations influenced their own practice style.)
"I'm not saying that physicians do tests in order to make money -- there is a potential to be a real cynic here -- but I think that the reimbursement model for most healthcare encourages utilization in a variety of ways," Sirovich said.