The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse of Medical Care is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do to Prevent It - Hardcover

Gibson, Rosemary; Singh, Janardan Prasad

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566638429 ISBN 13: 9781566638425

Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, 2010

Synopsis

With health reform enacted by the Congress and signed by the President, the subject matter of The Treatment Trap is a compelling component in the national debate. Taking advantage of Rosemary Gibson's knowledge gleaned from extended experience in the field of medical care and Janardan Singh's similar knowledge but from a financial perspective, the authors explore the most neglected issue in American medicine today: the overuse of medical care, including needless surgery and other invasive procedures, out-of-control x-ray imaging, profligate testing, and other wasteful practices that have become routine among too many American doctors. Their combined reporting and analysis concentrates on the human aspects of this disturbing trend in health care, with personal experiences that reflect poorly on hospitals as well as physicians. They show how money spent for questionable and even useless care is diverting major funds that could be better used to treat patients who are genuinely sick and sometimes cannot afford the extravagant charges of the American health-care system. Their suggestions for reforming the delivery of health care, and their cautions to individual consumers about how to deal with situations they may encounter, make The Treatment Trap essential reading for medical care consumers, health-care professionals, and policymakers alike.

About this title

About the Author

Rosemary Gibson is senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where for thirteen years she has directed hundreds of millions of dollars in grants aimed at improving end-of-life care. Janardan Prasad Singh is an economist at the World Bank and has written extensively on health care, social policy, and economic development. The authors have also collaborated on Wall of Silence, a book of narratives about medical error.

Reviews

Grants program director Gibson and World Bank economist Singh present a riveting case against the “more” culture of American medicine that is a natural development of the ideology that fueled the nation’s settlement and frontier expansion but that, applied to health care, facilitates alarming results. When emphasis shifts from scientifically weighing risk against patients’ potential medical benefit to maximizing health-care professionals’ profits, consumers pay more for often unnecessary tests, treatments, and procedures, and they and the system suffer. Medical overuse occurs because it can. Doctors’ autonomy within “a self-sealed system” keeps scrutiny at bay, leading to the overemphasis of dire prognoses and the domino effects of extra testing despite the increased likelihood of false positives and NIH warnings about the carcinogenicity of X-rays. And the affects of medical overuse for the sake of money aren’t only physical. A disproportionately frightening diagnosis “changes your view of your body and your life,” one research scientist says. Including an appendix of “Twenty Smart Ways to Protect Yourself,” this compelling argument may attract plenty of attention. --Whitney Scott

Edition details

• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1566638429
• ISBN 13: 9781566638425
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240