Low Value Care Prevalence Rate and Associated Medicare Spending ($)*
| Choosing Wisely Initiative | Prevalence Rate (%) | No. of Qualifying Beneficiaries | No. of LVC Beneficiaries | No. of LVC Events | Medicare Noninstitutional Part B Spending ($) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Don't image low back pain in 1st 6 weeks | 14.0 | 291,081 | 40,753 | 47,357 | 3,579,867 |
| Don't get brain imaging for simple syncope | 7.8 | 60,082 | 4,715 | 4,938 | 250,951 |
| Don't DEXA screen for osteoporosis in men younger than 70 | 0.8 | 120,916 | 911 | 916 | 48,850 |
| Don't get cardiac screening for low risk, asymptomatic patients | 3.0 | 1,078,840 | 32,671 | 33,860 | 373,649 |
| Don't routinely screen for prostate cancer | 36.3 | 454,807 | 164,872 | 213,841 | 5,599,381 |
| Don't perform routine pre-op testing before low risk surgical procedures | 3.1 | 153,020 | 4,738 | 4,898 | 49,463 |
| Don't screen for carotid artery disease in asymptomatic adult | 2.6 | 1,078,840 | 28,053 | 30,986 | 2,808,962 |
| Don't screen cervical cancer for women older than 65 | 8.6 | 624,044 | 53,461 | 54,653 | 2,386,114 |
LVC, low value care.
↵* Total number of Medicare beneficiaries in the study sample was 1,078,840. For each Choosing Wisely Initiative, qualifying beneficiaries indicated those Medicare beneficiaries who satisfied the qualifying criteria, as specified in Appendix Table 1, to receive the low value care service. The prevalence rate is a share (%) of qualifying beneficiaries who had received the specified low value care service. As in Schwartz et al.12, for each LVC service type, multiple LVC services that occurred the same day were considered one event.