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A comment on TV doctors say annual checkups save lives. Real doctors call bullshit. Parent comment

Re:TV doctors say annual checkups save lives. Real doctors c... by londons_explore on Saturday May 27, 2023 @06:26PM (#36099016)
> insurers probably have better actuarial data

Imagine you are an insurer and advise free annual checkups. Some of your patients don't bother. Those patients have a higher mortality. You conclude the annual checkup is good.

But you might be deceiving yourself - the kind of people to ignore health advice about getting an annual checkup might also be the kind of people to ignore the health advice on the back of a cigarette packet...

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Re:TV doctors say annual checkups save lives. Real doctors c... by nradov on Saturday May 27, 2023 @10:14PM (#36100511)
Major medical insurers are not naive about this stuff. They employ expert actuaries and data scientists who understand statistics and causality.
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Re:TV doctors say annual checkups save lives. Real doctors c... by londons_explore on Sunday May 28, 2023 @04:45AM (#36102253)
Sure, they understand the problem... But is there anything they can do about it?

I'm not aware of insurance companies being too keen on getting into medical experiments like 'people with a birthday on a Thursday don't get the free annual checkup'.

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