My neurologist ordered an MRI for me for last Wednesday, and I got a letter in the mail the preceding Friday that it had been denied. Guess it’s not standard.
This is CYA. Doctors now order tests out of an abundance of caution, knowing they are probably not necessary and knowing the insurance company will deny them. That way, in the very unlikely event the patient has whatever rare condition the test would have detected, the doctor’s butt is covered because he or she recommended the test.
Even so, some studies have concluded that a huge portion of medical tests are unnecessary. A recent New York Times story put the figure at 20 to 50 percent.
An MRI is quite different than a CT-scan, and much more expensive. The “gold standard” for ruling out a space-occupying mass of blood following head trauma is a CT scan.
CT scans are still a couple thousand dollars apiece, though, it’s not like they’re bargain basement tests.