Is it an act of medical malpractice to subject a patient to two CT scans in succession, when that exposes the recipient to the equivalent of approximately 750 standard X-rays and the rate at which hospitals typically do so is less than one percent?

That inquiry is not yet commonly posed regarding the practice, but a number of medical specialists and researchers are highly concerned with the frequency of what they regard as unnecessary CT scans and the increased radiation risk they present.

Radiologists voice a strongly unified view that the benefits rarely outweigh the risks. There are two types of scans, but those who perform them say that only one or the other is generally needed.

And yet the second scan is commonly ordered for Medicare chest patients and for privately insured patients. According to Medicare outpatient claims from 2008, some hospitals were ordering a second scan more than 80 percent of the time, and more than 200 hospitals used double scans on more than 30 percent of their Medicare patients.

That raises questions of whether the numbers are predominantly money-driven. "If you do both, you bill for both," says Dr. Michael J. Pentecost, a radiologist and consultant for Medicare.

Medicare paid out about $25 million in 2008 for double scans, and wants hospitals to focus more closely on their necessity.

Although the economics associated with the practice are obviously a concern and raise more than a few cynical eyebrows, Dr. James A. Brink, the chief of radiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital reminds that, "The primary concern relates to radiation exposure."

Related Resource: Boston Globe, "Unnecessary CT scans increase radiation concerns" June 18, 2011