Increasing osteoporosis screening referrals

Numerous popular, trade, and scientific publications have warned that "routine screening" for osteoporosis is at best unwarranted and at worst a ruse of entrepreneurial practitioners attempting to get rich quick. However, given the prevalence of osteoporosis and the estimated medical and nursing costs it incurs (ranging from $7 to $10 billion annually, or 1.4% to 2.3% of health care expenditures in 1985), screening and identifying persons at risk for rapid bone loss should not be branded a ruse. Not all health care providers offering assessment of osteoporosis lie down with thieves. Such an insinuation undermines the necessity for aggressively and appropriately addressing a major health problem.