Scan Medical Insurance

What would be the practicalities/impracticalities of getting a CAT scan at a yearly doctor's check up?

When you go to the dentist, you often get a yearly x-ray of all your teeth. You often hear about people who get conditions that end up killing them, and that if the doctor have found out about it sooner, they could have been saved. Why don't people get something like a yearly full-body CAT scan? Would that be advantageous? Not really? Although they're expensive, if they were made cheaper, but people got them on a yearly basis, it seems like those who run it wouldn't necessarily loose out on money for making them cheaper. One time I was knocked unconscious and found out that an ambulance brought me straight to the ER, not to mention that they had cut some good clothes with those cutters that they have. I was given a CT scan, then sent to the intensive care unit for a few days, then got another one. The second time they gave me some nasty smoothie to drink before putting me through again, so that may push some away from getting a yearly scan if they did start doing that. I don't know if it would be a good or bad idea for something like that. I'm just curious about the subject. What would be the reasons to have one yearly, vs why you wouldn't want to or why it'd be unnecessary?

Public Comments

1. "Currently some medical imaging facilities are promoting a new use of computed tomography (CT), also called computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanning. This use is referred to as whole-body CT scanning or whole-body CT screening, and it is marketed as a preventive or proactive healthcare measure to healthy individuals who have no symptoms or suspicion of disease. At this time the FDA knows of no data demonstrating that whole-body CT screening is effective in detecting any particular disease early enough for the disease to be managed, treated, or cured and advantageously spare a person at least some of the detriment associated with serious illness or premature death. Any such presumed benefit of whole-body CT screening is currently uncertain, and such benefit may not be great enough to offset the potential harms such screening could cause. Public health agencies and national medical and professional societies-the American College of Radiology, the American College of Cardiology / American Heart Association, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Health Physics Society, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and the American Medical Association - do not recommend CT screening." http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/ct/index.html There is more information at the above site. The reasons that these screening CT scans are not recommended, include: ***Such screening provides uncertain benefit with potential for some risk ***Radiation dose ***Scientific studies have not demonstrated that whole-body CT screening of individuals without symptoms provides a greater probability of benefit than harm ***No Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Approval of CT for Screening