Study: Doctors’ financial ties can lead to needless MRIs

Study: Doctors’ financial ties can lead to needless MRIs

Associated Press
Last Modified: Nov 30, 2011 04:46PM

If your doctor owns an MRI machine, you’re more likely to get scans you might not need, a study suggests.

Researchers analyzed reports on 500 MRI scans done for lower back pain that had been sent for review to Duke University. Of the scans with normal results, 106 were ordered by orthopedic surgeons who owned the machines, versus 57 by doctors without financial ties.

The results suggest that some doctors who own MRI scanners use them excessively on patients who probably don’t need them to help pay for the expensive equipment and make a profit, said study co-author Dr. Ramsey Kilani, a radiology instructor at Duke University who presented his results at this week’s Radiological Society of North America meeting at McCormick Place.

“Once you own a scanner, you have an incentive to run it 24 hours a day,” Kilani said.

Kilani declined to identify the city or the two orthopedic offices involved in the study but said similar results likely would be found in other cities.

Please read complete article at link below:

http://newssun.suntimes.com/lifestyles/9160504-423/study-doctors-financial-ties-can-lead-to-needless-mris.html