Re: “When high-tech medicine costs more, it should deliver” (editorial, 3-22).

While your editorial talks specifically about gynecological robotics, the larger point of contributing factors to skyrocketing health care costs is a good one. But it’s important to take into consideration the cost of care for the whole patient – not just what is billed for the procedure.

Some of these more expensive technologies may cost more per procedure, but if the patient can resume work sooner and spend fewer days in the hospital, there are cost savings that need to be included in the overall cost assessment.

Physicians …

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Re: “Doctors told robot hysterectomy not best” (TNT, 3-17).

I take exception to the opinions expressed by the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an organization whose purported goals is to advance health care for women.

His opinion that we should turn back the clock and only offer traditional methods of surgery would result in most women having major, invasive surgical procedures similar to what happened prior to the era of robotics.

Despite decades of training and innovation with vaginal and laparoscopic approaches to hysterectomy, more than 66 percent of women nationally are still told today …

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Re: “Good medicine also includes knowing what shouldn’t be done” (Viewpoint, 10-19).

Dr. Nick Rajacich’s article recommending more thoughtful decisions before ordering scans and tests is right, but the legal system and attorneys need to be on board, too.

No diagnostic system is perfect, but when the penalty for a missing a potentially dangerous abnormality is almost certainly a lawsuit, as a physician I will feel compelled to order MRIs even when I expect them to be normal.

Will the public and lawyers accept 95 percent accuracy to save lots of medical expense, or will they demand and pay …

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