Menu
The Goodman Institute Health Blog
  • Home
  • Authors
    • Devon Herrick, Ph.D.
    • John C. Goodman
  • Popular Topics
    • Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare
    • Consumer-Driven Health Care
      • Affordable Care Act
      • Cost of Healthcare
      • COVID-19 and Public Health
      • Doctors & Hospitals
      • Public Insurance
      • Policy & Legislation
    • Direct Primary Care
    • Health Economics & Costs
      • Drug Prices & Regulations
      • Health Insurance
      • Health Reform
    • Medical Tourism
    • Telemedicine
    • Medicare
      • Single-Payer/Medicare-for-All
  • Goodman Institute
  • Contact
The Goodman Institute Health Blog

Hospitals Perform a Ton of Unnecessary Procedures… Even During Covid

Posted on May 19, 2022May 19, 2022 by Devon Herrick

When Covid-19 struck in early 2020 many hospitals and hospital outpatient clinics began to scale back or stopped performing non-emergency procedures. The idea was to avoid putting patients at risk of Covid or to reserve capacity for those with Covid. At least that was the theory and partly why hospitals were provided federal bailout funds when their usual business model was interrupted by the pandemic. Nonetheless, the Lown Institute analyzed Medicare claims data to see if hospitals were still performing low-value procedures between March and December 2020. The think tank found that despite the pandemic, hospitals performed more than 100,000 largely unnecessary procedures that were either of little clinical value or more likely to harm patients than benefit them. Coronary stents and back surgeries were among the most-performed surgeries of questionable value.

A total of 106,474 procedures identified:

  1. Stents for stable coronary disease: 45,176

  2. Vertebroplasty for osteoporosis: 16,553

  3. Hysterectomy for benign disease: 14,455

  4. Spinal fusion for back pain: 13,541

  5. Inferior vena cava filter: 9,595

  6. Carotid endarterectomy: 3,667

  7. Renal stent: 1,891

  8. Knee arthroscopy: 1,596

It was not just rogue hospitals or second or third tier community hospitals with high rates of low-value procedures. Top U.S. hospitals were often the worst offenders:

Among the “U.S. News & World Report” 20 top-ranked hospitals, all had rates of coronary stent procedures above the national average in what the Lown Institute called “overuse.” Four had at least double the national average, including the Cleveland Clinic, Houston Methodist Hospital, Mt. Sinai and Barnes Jewish Hospital. The procedures and overuse criteria were based on previous Lown research.

The American Hospital Association took issue with Lown’s assessment, saying:

“Lown may define these services as ‘low value,’ but they can be of tremendous value to the patients who receive them,”

It added that procedures are determined by physicians based on an evaluation of the patient’s medical needs.

Join the conversation.Cancel reply

For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.

During this five-year hiatus no one else has come forward to claim the space. So, my colleagues and I have decided to restart the blog in connection with the Goodman Institute. We invite you and others to use this forum to share your views.

John C. Goodman,

Visit www.goodmaninstitute.org

Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 36 other subscribers

Popular Topics

©2025 The Goodman Institute Health Blog | Website by Lexicom