Discussion: I am a chronic prostatitis patient who often visits doctors. Instead of trying to figure out my situation, I am being sent for countless tests, most of which are entirely unnecessary. Is this a familiar phenomenon?

Chronic prostatitis is a disease that significantly affects the quality of life of men but is considered a relatively mild disease that does not endanger the patient's life. In my assessment (without verified data), idle tests are a wide-ranging phenomenon and very complex to estimate.

Intuitively, I thought it was indeed an existing phenomenon. In a Google search, I brought up an article from The New Yorker from 2015 about a wide-ranging phenomenon with health and economic consequences. Has the situation improved since 2015? I doubt the burdens on doctors following the coronavirus crisis have increased dramatically. What are the dimensions of the phenomenon? It's hard to say for sure, but they are probably important—a possible topic for empirical research. (I estimate that private insurance companies and state health insurance would have been happy to accept the research findings.)

An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. What can we do about it?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande