Hello. I’m Dr Charles Vega, and I am a clinical professor of family medicine at the University of California at Irvine. Welcome to Medscape Morning Report, our 1-minute news story for primary care.
It probably comes as no surprise to primary care physicians to learn that the frequency with which patients come in asking for a specific intervention—a drug, a blood test, an imaging study—has increased over the past 30 years.
A large analysis of data from a Dutch primary care network, collected from 1985 to 2014, confirms this trend. Requests for lab tests or an imaging study more than doubled. A request for a specific drug was up more than 20%.
What may be surprising is the percentage of compliance with these requests, which also increased significantly. Physicians are complying 70%-100% of the time. The investigators attributed this increase to a greater sense of patient empowerment and easy access to medical information.
The question is: Is this trend positive or negative? It’s important to have empowered patients involved in active decision-making, but not every patient request is reasonable, or even safe. What do you think? Please use the comment button to voice your opinion on this new research.
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