A. Using expensive testing equipment B. Staffing a modern hospital C. Testing becoming a great help D. Cost of medical accidents E. Cost of training medical workers F. Measures of reducing medical costs

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Physicians’ fees are only one reason for rising health costs in the United States. Medical research has produced many tests to diagnose, or discover, patients’ illness. Physicians usually feel obliged to order enough tests to rule out all likely causes of a patient’s symptoms. A routine laboratory bill for blood tests can easily be more than $100.
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Sophisticated new machines have been developed to enable physicians to scan body organs with a clarity never before possible. One technique involves the use of ultrasound – sound waves beyond the frequencies that human beings can hear – to produce images. Others use computers to capture and analyze images produced by X-rays or magnetic fields. These machines are extremely expensive: The price of a single machine can exceed one million dollars.
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New technologies also mean new personnel. Physicians, nurses and orderlies can no longer staff a hospital alone. Hospitals now require a bewildering number of technical specialists to administer new tests and operate advanced medical equipment.
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Physicians and hospitals also must buy malpractice insurance to protect themselves should they be sued for negligence by patients who feel they have been mistreated or have received inadequate care. The rates for this insurance have been raised very steeply in the last ten years, as patients have become more medically knowledgeable, and as juries sometimes awarded very large amounts of money to injured patients.
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As a result, hospital costs and physicians’ fees rose steadily through the 1990s. Government agencies became convinced that it was necessary to limit rising medical costs. One approach is to require hospitals to prove that a need exists for new buildings and services. Hospitals also have faced pressure to run their operations more efficiently, and to decrease the duration of hospital stays for patients receiving routine treatment or minor surgery.

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