Soaring costs

To the editor:

Many citizens of Douglas County no doubt wonder why medical care and medical insurance costs seem so high. One significant contributing factor is the cost of expensive diagnostic equipment like the proposed PET CT scanner that the radiologists and Lawrence Memorial Hospital are considering.

As LMH CEO Gene Meyer accurately stated, “Americans like their health care convenient and accessible. We want it when we want it. That has become the expectation.” A portable PET CT scanner apparently is currently available once a week, but the Journal-World article of Sept. 21 suggests that it may be too much to expect a patient to wait a day or so, up to a week, for a more definitive diagnosis of a tumor. The radiologists are quoted as fearing that if the device is not available daily, some business might be lost to Kansas City or Topeka.

Reaching the stated projected 20 percent growth rate will require usage for much more than tumor diagnosis. Some years ago, a portable MRI machine was available at LMH much like the PET CT scanner is today. Then an on-site MRI was installed and usage soared, partly replacing some of the demand for the expensive CT scanner we already had. I am convinced that the use of sophisticated diagnostic equipment explodes as a result of ready availability. I don’t know that health care necessarily improves at the same rate, but I do know that the cost of health care certainly does, and health insurance costs are reflected in that explosion.

Dr. Phillip Godwin,

Lawrence