Word: ct
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Feroz Abbasi disliked the brash Australian who competed with him for the attention and favor of their al-Qaeda boss. He described his rival as "Al-Qaedah's 24 ct. [carat] Golden Boy" and claimed he'd said he wanted to rob and kill Jews back in Australia and crash an airplane into a building. Abbasi's resentful and deeply unflattering account of his Australian comrade, David Hicks, is contained in a 148-page memoir he wrote for anti-terrorism investigators while incarcerated in the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba...
...seeking to provide their patients with the best possible care are exploring what is known as evidence-based medicine--a hard, cold, empirical look at what works, what doesn't and how to distinguish between the two. It's not enough to prove that a particular blood test or CT scan really spots cancer, for example. You also need to know whether early detection of that cancer would make a difference in your ability to respond to treatment or it merely means that you would die at the same point but learn about your illness earlier than you would have...
...many physicians losing income, a diagnostic center is an attractive income generator. CT angiography, MRI, ultrasound and electrodiagnostics all pay comparably more and incur far less liability than giving medicines, doing procedures or performing most surgeries. The pure diagnostician renders the information from his fancy test, takes the money and walks away--a great business model. Electromyograms to "diagnose" carpal tunnel syndrome, for one, usually pay more than the surgery to correct...
Such competition is fueling the arms race. Via Christi is counterattacking with a new neuromedicine service line. The weapons: a 64-slice CT scanner; and a brand-new $3.5 million CyberKnife, an X-ray gun that zaps tumors with pinpoint precision, housed in its own $1.5 million building. It has set up a stroke-treatment center and brain-aneurysm lab. "This is one of the areas that we've beefed up since all the specialty stuff happened," says Larry Schumacher, CEO of Via Christi's Wichita operations. "We're trying very hard to protect that." Wesley, for its part...
Nowhere is this more apparent than in diagnostic imaging. Last year Americans spent more than $100 billion on outpatient scans. Medicare's imaging costs have been growing 16% a year, much faster than the 9.6% rise for all physician services. The most lucrative--MRI and CT--climbed 25% last year. A third of the testing, says Donahue of National Imaging, is inappropriate; doctors order unnecessary scans, or two when one would suffice. "This is one of the most unsavory and concerning areas of how imaging is delivered," he says. "It's when imaging studies are not based upon clinical needs...