Additional diagnostics can also be very expensive. Articles like this don’t seem to understand the overall costs to a health system with decisions like these. And that cost eventually does go down into the pockets of patients one way or another.
Additional diagnostics can also be very expensive. Articles like this don’t seem to understand the overall costs to a health system with decisions like these. And that cost eventually does go down into the pockets of patients one way or another.
I think the point of the conversation is that if we take the predatory capitalism out of the way, using MRIs could potentially be a net benefit overall for everyone.
I'd argue that malpractice risk has at least as much negative influence on a physicians judgment.
It's perceived as much less (medico-legally) risky to "do something" (or more often "refer the patient to someone else to do something") than not do something.
OECD data (most recent available, around 2020–2022): MRI units per 100K population: United States ~3.6, Canada ~1.0, United Kingdom ~0.7
I would argue that getting "predatory capitalism" out of the way has sharply curtailed MRI availability where that's been tried. Maybe we should loosen the leash on capitalism a bit to get better care...