&gt; <i>Further I&#x27;m a little shocked that the medical industry can get away with a stated policy that patients should wait until their symptoms are acute and then get a minimum number of tests so their doctors don&#x27;t get confused.</i><p>It&#x27;s because this is a reasonable strategy, that takes into the account the actual quality of the tests, the base rate, and the fact that people are idiots^W^Woverreact dramatically when it comes to health. This is a combination of insight that most of the serious diseases are rare, so most patients <i>will</i> be fine if they wait a little bit more, coupled with the insight that they most definitely <i>won&#x27;t</i> be fine if they freak out, and most of them will.