Bentley Virtual Symposium (Nov 14): Data Mining Medicare claims

Is there an overuse of computed tomography scanning
of patients in US hospitals?

A review of evidence by mining the Medicare claims database,
by Fotios Kokkotos, Partner, and
Grace Xuan Dong, Associate Statistician, Trinity Partners

Wednesday November 14th; talk 4:00 pm, reception 3:15 pm;
location Smith 122 at Bentley or remotely
atcweb.bentley.edu/conferences/virtualanalytics/

Radiologists claim that performing two or more CT (Computed Tomography) scans in succession is rarely necessary, yet the practice of multiple CT scanning of patients during the same visit has continued in recent years. This talk discusses how to use the Medicare claims database to review the evidence and identify factors that contribute to this practice.

The results corroborate with previous policy studies in concluding that hospitals can and should do more to modify physician behavior by implementing new protocols and to monitor the administration of multiple CT scans. The results also warrant a potential investigation of similar European databases.