When to Say No to Your Doctor

This past January when I was discussing various topics with my doctor, instead of asking again if I would agree to a Colonoscopy she said to the note taking nurse/assistant working the computer, "You see she's interested in alternative treatments, bio-identical hormones.  We've asked several years in a row for the Colonoscopy, she is most likely not going to get one." The doctor turned to me with eye to eye contact and said "Are you?"  I said, "No."  

Then she provided an explanation for the repetitive badgering about Colonoscopies that their medical practice receives extra money if a certain threshold quota of patients receiving Colonoscopies is reached. 

OK well, some say it's preventative medicine.  Some say the best way to retain health is to eat right, exercise, manage stress and stay out of the doctor's office.

Either way HERE is a great article "When to Say No to Your Doctor" to file away for the next time you are asked by your doctor to take a drug or get surgery etc to take this into account.  

One excerpt:
"The United States spends roughly twice as much per capita as most of the nations of Western Europe, whose citizens on average outlive us by a couple of years. Our own national Institute of Medicine says we waste $210 billion annually on treatments of no or marginal benefit. In a study last year, researchers from the Mayo Clinic went through 10 years of the New England Journal of Medicine, from 2001 through 2010. Of the established tests and procedures reevaluated in studies in the journal, 40 percent were found to be worthless."

"In the U.S., we don't stress preventing disease," Brawley says. "We stress finding disease early and treating it, which is a shame."
Make no mistake: A good doctor is, or should be, your most trusted resource if you're sick. If you're not sick and he wants to treat you anyway, that doesn't necessarily make him a bad doctor. But it does make him a player in a system that operates according to the unspoken and often unexamined assumption that more treatment is better for the patient. It's unquestionably better for the financial health of the stakeholders in the system: the doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance companies, and the hospitals. If you don't know how the game is played, the odds go up that you'll wind up the loser."

This article may be of interest to you as well:
Surgeries You May Be Better Without click HERE