Deciding when a picture is worth a thousand words and several thousand dollars

[摘要] The costs of medical care in the United States are clearly out of line with those inother high-income countries. In a recent analysis,1 Papanicolas et al noted that despitecomparable utilization of services, costs were far higher in the United States. Notablyhigh were our administrative costs (accounting for almost 8% of spending), our use ofimaging studies, and the cost of those studies. While many clinicians are troubled bythe seemingly massive growth of administrative personnel and functions and wouldlike to signifi cantly shrink both, the path to reducing costs of imaging (and of testingin general) is fraught with potholes related to clinical care.

[学科分类] 卫生学