Radiology: Marketing Out of Control?

You've seen the commercials, particularly during the Olympics this year, hawking state of the art medical imaging equipment. They feature doctors crowded around computer monitors, looking at spinning 3D models of bones or internal organs. It's all very high tech, cool-looking, expensive stuff...but is it useful?

I learned today that, for the most part, it isn't.

According to the radiology doctors at National Imaging Associates (a radiology services company), the 3D models provide little or no additional useful diagnostic information than the typical segmented images already produced by medical imaging equipment. In reality, all the 3D software is doing is taking those segments and stacking them atop one another to form a 3D image. It looks cool on the screen, but it can hide details that would be easily seen on the flat segmented images. Besides...it's really freakin' expensive.

From a marketing standpoint, though, the software is worth its weight in gold. Not only does it help sell imaging equipment (the usefulness of which is undeniable), it also gives care providers some additional whiz-bang functionality that they can use to attract patients. It may even boost patient confidence in the quality of treatment they receive.

In the end, however, the utility of the equipment becomes largely irrelevant when considered within the framework of our current health care and insurance system. If care providers spend millions on fancy software and equipment, the resultant increase in the cost of care will be hidden from consumers by health insurance, since the costs will be paid out of the pool of funds taken in by the insurance company through premiums, rather than by the individuals receiving treatment.

And herein lies one of the greatest reasons for increasing health care costs. When was the last time your doctor gave you an option between two or more forms of treatment, citing differences in cost as a possible determining factor in your decision? It's probably never happened to anyone who has health insurance. Even when there are several treatment options of similar effectiveness that vary in cost, doctors and patients typically choose the "best" and usually the most expensive treatment...often without hesitation. If patients were paying the bill directly, they would take more time to weigh their options, and fancy but mostly useless software and equipment would be weeded out of the market.