It's a massive waste of money and resources to get an EKG without a clinical presentation. It's a massive resources to get a CBC and CMP without some positive predictive value. Why don't we throw every test at you? Because there's a significant chance you will be a false positive/negative. This is dangerous to look at this way.
What are those risks, like, what do they look like quantified?
"Waste of money and resources" is relative if you're only blowing ~$200 bucks. Even if there is a 8-10% chance of a false positive, they're cheap enough to do two... or 8. Kinda like how people by multiple cheap birth control tests.
Anecdote: I've had hernia problems off and on courtesy of the USMC and did no less than three (3) sonograms after being referred by different GPs to do so -- and they found nothing. Symptoms didn't go away and I kept going back. This was in the Inova system around Washington DC, one of the better systems in the US. One afternoon I double over in pain and end up in emergency surgery because, low and behold, I did actually have a hernia and it was strangulated; my intestine was literally dying one inch at a time. Emergency surgery saved my life, but I paid ~3-4K for all of those sonograms & consults + more for the actual surgery. All in maybe $8-10K.
Walmart-tier medical may not be great, but one of the better health systems in the US failed me just as effectively, and at a greater cost. Would 5 Walmart sonograms have found it? 10 scans? Maybe not, but I probably could have done 10 scans and still saved money.
If a test has 5% false-positive rate, you can't just test 5 times and expect to have a <0.000001 false positive rate, maybe not less than 1% or even 4% - depends on the test and how you repeat it.
If they test you for antibodies, and your blood reacts, doing the same thing 5 or 50 times is not going to help. If you have a wobble on your EKG, it's not going away just because you measure it 10 times. Though it might, if you were just stressed the first time. Or they might find something 2 out of 10 times and then what - do you just ignore it?
To be clear, I'm not against non-invasive voluntary testing, but procedures need to be adjusted, otherwise people get treatments they don't need and suffer the effects (while also tying up actual doctors and equipment).
BTW sorry about your issues. Those were false negatives, and you had symptoms, where better/additional/more tests are warranted.
Medicalidiot, the most an EKG machine costs is a few thousand dollars if that. Running the machine costs probably less than a penny in electricity. What is the "MASSIVE" waste of resources here?
Reading the EKG gets billed at $200-%300 because you want a board certified cardiologist who can look at the nuances of an EKG to tell you whether your right bundle branch block is part of the 99% that is likely benign or if it's that 1 in 100 that we are going to put you under intense therapy so you don't die.
