The campaign, also backed by Consumer Reports, encourages medical providers to hand out wallet-sized cards to patients with questions they should ask to determine whether they truly need a procedure.

Critics have knocked Choosing Wisely for playing it too safe and not going after some of the more lucrative procedures, such as certain spine operations and arthroscopic knee surgeries.


Daniel Wolfson, chief operating officer at the ABIM Foundation, said the Choosing Wisely campaign has been successful at starting a national conversation about unwarranted care. “I think we need massive change and that takes 15 years,” Wolfson said.

The state effort, dubbed Smart Care California, is in the early stages as well.

Initially, the group has focused on cutting the number of elective cesarean sections, reducing opioid use and avoiding overtreatment for patients suffering low-back pain. In its contract with health insurers, the Covered California exchange requires that their in-network providers meet a range of quality standards, including low C-section rates.

Dr. Richard Sun, co-chairman of the Smart Care group and a medical consultant at CalPERS, said he’s pursuing safer, more affordable treatments for low-back pain, a condition that cost the state agency $107 million in 2015. “One challenge is developing metrics that everyone can agree upon to measure improvement,” he said.

For patients, overtreatment can be more than a minor annoyance. Galen Gunther, a 59-year-old from Oakland, said that during treatment for colorectal cancer a decade ago he was subjected needlessly to repeated blood draws, often because the doctors couldn’t get their hands on earlier results. Later, he said, he was overexposed to radiation, leaving him permanently scarred.

“Every doctor I saw wanted to run the same tests, over and over again,” Gunther said. “Nobody wanted to take responsibility for that.”

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