Underuse of appropriate health care is harmful — and costly

The phrase “less is more” has become omnipresent in health care. Whether it’s inserting too many artery-opening stents into people with angina, performing too many surgeries for back pain, ordering too many CT scans for headaches, or prescribing too many narcotics for people with chronic pain, overuse is rampant in our medical system. As the Senate tries to fashion a bill that will likely end up taking away access to health care from millions of Americans, it is important to remember that underuse of evidence-based services is an equally pressing issue. When it comes to health, less is sometimes lesser.

While the United — Americans lag behind many other countries in the quality of care they receive at the , , and of their lives. This discordance has increased pressure to reduce costs, and so-called medical waste has become a prominent target. While several measures have been developed to curb wastefulness, some of these have had the unintended consequence of reducing access to potentially lifesaving treatments or therapies.