Double your pleasure, double your fun, double your radiation
The New York Times reported that hundreds of community hospitals frequently perform two chest CT scans back-to-back (one with, one without IV contrast), while academic centers almost never do. More than 70,000 patients were double-scanned; some hospitals did it >80% of the time on their Medicare chest patients. Defenders say they don't do it to increase billing (although it does), but to compensate for lower expertise at those centers. (NYT.com)