Doctors Who Own Stress Machines More Likely to Order Heart Test
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Doctors who own and bill for nuclear cardiac stress-test technology are twice as likely to order the procedure as those who aren’t paid for it, researchers said.
The widest variation in whether a doctor prescribed a nuclear stress test, which uses radiation to track blood flow, occurred when patients had no symptoms of coronary disease following bypass surgery or other heart procedures, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Physicians who owned the equipment ordered tests in 10 percent of the cases versus 4.3 percent for those who didn’t.