[tptacek]

We very definitely image too much. There are apparently as many MRI machines in Massachusetts as there are in all of Canada. "We image too much" is a pretty common complaint in health policy discussions; Rayiner is not just making that up himself.

[const_cast]

I don't know, maybe, but at the same time our cancer screening recommendations are pretty conservative and we're actively looking to lower the screening ages for some of them because enough are slipping through the cracks.

We do image a lot for injuries. Maybe it's to give radiologists something to do, I don't know.

[tptacek]

First, when we're talking about imaging overuse we're generally talking about injuries and back/joint paint.

But it's also probably not true that we screen less aggressively than Europe. For instance, I think we start breast cancer screening earlier than Europe. There are European countries with better rates of colorectal screening, but that's a patient compliance issue as much as anything else (and 10 years from now standard of care is unlikely to be imaging-based for that screening for most pts).