Too many tests? Routine checks getting second look (AP)

FILE - In this Feb. 6, 2009 file photo, a man sits on an ergometer during an electrocardiogram in a doctor's surgical office in Stuttgart, Germany. Some of the nuts-and-bolts tests administered during check-ups and non-emergency visits are getting a second look. Think twice about a routine EKG if you have no heart symptoms, or a chest X-ray just because you’re going in for knee surgery. Increasingly, groups that represent the very doctors who order the most common medical tests say they do so way too often, wasting money and sometimes harming people when false alarms spur unneeded follow-up care.  (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle, File)AP – Recent headlines offered a fresh example of how the health care system subjects people to too many medical tests — this time research showing millions of older women don’t need their bones checked for osteoporosis nearly so often.