Doctors: 90+ Procedures Are Overkill, Drive Health Costs

A group of doctors have assembled a list of more than 90 medical procedures that are overused, often useless, and even harmful, in a bid to drive Americans toward consuming less care. The report, from ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely program calls out everything from Pap tests (which it argues shouldn't be routine) to CT scans (which shouldn't be used for minor head injuries to children) to caesarean deliveries, which, when performed early, increase a baby's risk of learning disabilities or death, Forbes and the LA Times report.

"Millions of Americans are increasingly realizing that when it comes to health care, more is not necessarily better," one doctor said. The list was created with the help of 25 medical societies with specialists hailing from 17 disciplines. The foundation thinks the over-treating is a major driver of the US' sky-high medical costs; American doctors, for instance, perform almost twice as many CT scans and MRIs as doctors in the rest of the world. You can see all the project's lists here. (More medical costs stories.)