More health care cost

About 6 or so weeks ago my wife and I were out sailing with friends.  The boat hit an unexpected wave and I lost my balance landing bum first on a piece of 3/4" wide cockpit coming.  It hurt and I doubtless bruised my bum or damaged my coccyx.  It's been very painful to sit and especially to drive the car.  Naturally, when I went to the doctor I inquired about the injury as I was concerned about how much longer this was going to hurt.  Understand, I've had similar injuries in the past and I know they take a long long time to resolve and there isn't much that can be done about them.  Even so after six weeks I was starting to wonder how much longer.

Now here's the interesting part.  When I asked the doctor, she said at least another 6 weeks, perhaps longer.  Not the answer I was looking for, but an answer and helpful in setting my expectations.  Then somewhat to my surprise the doctor suggested that perhaps a pelvic x-ray was in order.  I asked her if that would change anything and she indicated that it wouldn't but might provide some reassurance and a better idea of healing time.  I don't know what a pelvic x-ray cost but at a guess I'd expect some hundreds of dollars.

Think about it for a bit.  The injury is over 6 weeks old.  I'm healing slowly but definitely healing.  There isn't any real treatment.  The x-ray won't change anything physically but might make me feel better emotionally.  Common sense suggests that it's not worth the cost.  Indeed, common sense suggests that it should never have been on offer.  That raises the interesting question of how much heal care is consumed not because it's medically necessary but because it might improve someone's emotional state.  I'll concede that there are certainly times when someone's emotional state is such that a medical procedure that doesn't really treat the underlying condition is justified.  But how ofter are we doing things just because we can or because the patient is a bit whinny?

Common sense says that we should remove the whinny factor from medical care.