Choosing health care providers can be a difficult and scary task. The list below will give some tools to help you comfortably make a good decision about where to get imaging tests, especially ultrasound.
- If you think you need an ultrasound, have a doctor examine you first. A test will be much more useful if there is a physician to send it back to. Choose a place that asks for a request from your doctor as they will be more concerned about your follow up care.
- Choose a place that follows government regulations for hygiene especially having sinks for hand washing. If there is no sink in the ultrasound room, the sonographer likely does not wash his/her hands between patients.
- Choose a place that will store and send all the ultrasound images of all the body parts that will appear on your report. This is essential for interpretation of any follow up imaging or second opinion. Ultrasound can be stored on compact disk (CD), USB storage (flash drive), or transmitted over a network. These should be available at no extra cost as it is a simple thing to do on all modern equipment and is a legal requirement in all developed countries, including Guyana.
- Choose a place where your images will be interpreted by a qualified radiologist. A medical doctor is the only person qualified to make a specific diagnosis or to recommend further testing. Sonographers by law and international standard, should work along with radiologists. Radiologists can also perform ultrasound and do the interpretation themselves, but this is unusual as they usually have other tasks.
- Avoid places that hurry to give you the report within minutes of dressing. Ultrasound deserves the same seriousness as a CT scan or MRI. Time to compare with previous images or other tests you might have done are extremely important in arriving at the most accurate diagnosis. The international standard for completion of an outpatient ultrasound report is actually 24 hours.
- Cheaper is not always better. At lower prices persons tend to go faster and cut corners in order to see more "customers."
- Try to get your test done at the same place every time, once they meet the criteria above. That way, they will have access to your prior images and other tests to compare.
CHECK ALL OF THESE OFF BEFORE GETTING AN ULTRASOUND AND YOU CAN'T GO WRONG!
Add comment
Comments