[www.latimes.com]

"WASHINGTON — Nearly 100 medical procedures, tests and therapies are overused and often unnecessary, a coalition of leading medical societies says in a new report aimed at improving healthcare and controlling runaway costs.

The medical interventions — including early caesarean deliveries, CT scans for head injuries in children and annual Pap tests for middle-aged women — may be necessary in some cases, the physician groups said. But often they are not beneficial and may even cause harm.
"

"Millions of Americans are increasingly realizing that when it comes to healthcare, more is not necessarily better," said Dr. Christine K. Cassel, president of the ABIM Foundation.

For example, despite the popularity of early caesareans, there is growing evidence that babies born before 39 weeks' gestation have higher risks of learning disabilities and even death.

Whether, or how quickly, the initiative to curb unnecessary procedures will yield results remains unclear.

Persuading doctors to be more conservative can be difficult, said Dr. Lowell E. Schnipper, an oncologist at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and chairman of a national task force on controlling the cost of cancer care. "These diseases can be fatal," Schnipper said. "The stakes are high. And families very often push the doctor, who wants to take care of the patient as best he or she can.""

"Like many experts, Jain advocates more evaluation of physicians and new ways to pay for healthcare that reward better outcomes and higher efficiency instead of the current fee-for-service system, which pays doctors for every procedure they do.

"If we really are going to bend the cost curve, we have to get really serious," Jain said.

Among the medical societies that identified overused procedures prescribed by their members were the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
"

Here's another article detailing the specific procedures --

Doctors Call Out 90 More Unnecessary Medical Tests, Procedures - Forbes

[www.forbes.com] …

Here are more details --

[www.choosingwisely.org]

But from what I've heard, the reason doctors have to do so many stupid tests is because of the shyster lawyers suing them for malpractice.