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Frank Matthews, MD
DeKalb General Hospital Decatur, Ga

JAMA. 1986;255(10):1287.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Dr Angell¹ is to be congratulated for pointing out that preventive health care probably will not save money, at least not in the America of today. I fear, however, that readers may draw incomplete conclusions from her reference to the possible savings from elimination of unneeded "little-ticket items." She notes, quite accurately, that her data are from teaching hospitals; the situation in nonteaching hospitals may be very different and more difficult to correct.

Our 520-bed community hospital has no residents, and our laboratory does no "routine" tests—all must be ordered specifically. I have my suspicions that some of these are unnecessary. Our clinicians, however, come from diverse training programs all over the country. They are not all cost conscious, but they all think they are cost conscious, and most of them can emphatically quote literature to back their orders.

If someone—though not I, it is hoped—were . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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