04.09.12 In a move likely to alter treatment standards in hospitals and doctors’ offices nationwide, a group of nine medical specialty boards recommended that doctors perform 45 common tests and procedures less often, and urged patients to question these services if they are offered. Eight other specialty boards are preparing to follow suit with additional lists of procedures their members should perform far less often.

The recommendations represent an unusually frank acknowledgment by physicians that many profitable tests and procedures are performed unnecessarily and may harm patients. By some estimates, unnecessary treatment constitutes one-third of medical spending in the United States.