Health Affairs, 28, no. 5 (2009): 1509-1514 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.1509 © 2009 by Project HOPE	New Online   Senate Health Reform Bill   Rewarding Providers   Public Option Policy Brief   Health Reform & Abortion   Delivery System Reform

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Narrative Matters

Shingles Does It

FOR YEARS I'VE HEARD FRIENDS DESCRIBE EXPERIENCES of being caught in a web of excessive and unnecessary medical testing. Their doctors ordered test Z to investigate a seemingly incidental finding on test Y, which, in turn, came about because of a borderline abnormality on test X. I often wondered why test X was done in the first place. As a primary care physician, I would have treated them for the likely diagnosis and done diagnostic tests—especially a series of diagnostic tests—only if they didn’t respond as expected.

By the time my friends told me these stories, their . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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