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Comment by Ensorceled | Hacker News Reader

Also, can we pass a law that if the person doing a screening colonoscopy finds "1 polyp" that turns the diagnostic into a far more profitable "treatment" they lose their medical license? And can we make that law retroactive?

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> can we make that law retroactive

No, we can't make laws retroactive, at least not in the US, and why would you want that anyway?

*edit for formatting

Only criminal laws are prohibited from being retroactive, because the Supreme Court works in mysterious ways.

I assumed the parent meant a criminal penalty. But, I still don't understand why anyone would want the government to have such a capricious legislative power.

So you want a second, diagnostic colonoscopy to remove the polyp rather than converting the screening into a diagnostic at time of service?

This would require another bowel prep, another round of anesthesia, and even more operative time, and yes, another colonoscopy charge.

The point is, there sometimes isn’t a polyp, they take a chunk out of your bowel and say the did a polyp removal.

If one has some way to prove this there is plenty of legal recourse already available.

Agreed. That would be an easy fraud case to prove. As an extra check, all these polyps get inspected under a microscope by a pathologist to make sure they aren't cancer. They would also be committing fraud to say the "not a polyp" was a polyp.

This is already a law. Polyp removal is included in the cost of a screening colonoscopy as per the ACA. It's only not included if the patient decides they want to do it at a different time.

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