I wish people would think outside themselves for a bit. Is every person who has self-diagnosed with Dr Google right? I am sure doctors have seen a bunch of people that are waving some printout that says "I have X, I need Y! Stat!" and are totally wrong. I personally don't blame them for wanting to go through the tests.
I know a couple of doctors who have said that people come in saying "I have X, I need Y".. they called it "Googleitis". There are some times when they are right, but many times that they are wrong.
I agree that the tests should still be performed to take care of that problem. I also strongly agree that "requiring referrals" and having to go to 3 or 4 different doctors to get a test, diagnosis, prescription, and often times, another test just to make sure is terrible. Each time, I need to schedule appointments, wait, go to another doctor, wait, etc. It seems like what should take a week to do is stretched out in to 6-8 weeks, and I have to pay for it every time, even with Insurance.
It's actually an even deeper problem that people self-diagnosing through Google, as diagnostic tools increase in sophistication and decrease in cost you can potentially find "issues" that never existed before.
Take CT scans: if you took a random sampling of people, gave them a CT scan and then had an ortho doc look at the result 30% of the scans would show an "abnormality", but almost none of the patients would end up actually needing spine surgery.
Similarly with apnea, almost everyone has some sleep apnea, but not everyone needs a CPAP, etc.
