Every internist has been there: a healthy 60-year-old scheduled for cataract surgery ends up with an EKG, labs, maybe even a chest X-ray, all for a procedure that carries almost no systemic risk. We order them not because they’re useful, but because “that’s how it’s always been done.”
These pre-op assessments eat up valuable clinic slots, cost patients over $1,200 in unnecessary testing, and force them to take time off work for visits that add no measurable benefit. Multiply that by tens of thousands of low-risk surgeries every year, and the waste becomes staggering.
But what if we stopped doing them altogether, and replaced the whole process with something smarter?
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