Doctors are being urged to stop ordering tests and treatments that are "incredibly unreliable" in the most benign of cases and downright harmful in the worst.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) has published lists of tests and treatments for doctors treating pregnant women and abnormally short children that it believes are unnecessary, a waste of taxpayer money, and in some cases, harmful.
One such practice is a common blood test for patients with symptoms of a clot. The Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (SOMANZ) said doctors should stop ordering the D-dimer test for pregnant women, because pregnancy can elevate D-dimer levels.
"And there are reports of women with a clot where a test is actually negative, so for that reason it's incredibly unreliable," SOMANZ's Dr Helen Robinson said.
"The cost of all these unnecessary tests are covered by the taxpayer or private health insurance, so it's important we identify and we reduce low-value practices."
SOMANZ has also recommended that doctors should stop testing for inherited clotting disorders when women have pregnancy complications linked to the placenta. New studies have debunked the claim that such genetic factors are linked to problems such as stillbirth and recurrent miscarriage.
"It's an issue because this panel of tests is very expensive and it's an unnecessary cost to the taxpayer with no benefit to anyone," Dr Robinson said.
"While cost and convenience are issues, if someone acts as a result of a test they never needed and starts taking a medication, that's a harm."
SOMANZ's list is among 17 that have been published by RACP, as part of its Evolve initiative, which aims to eliminate unnecessary tests and treatments.
The Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Group (APEG) has also made five recommendations - two of which relate to treatments for children of short stature that may not be effective (in some cases) and may cause harm.
It said while the use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone therapy may increase the height of children with early puberty, there was evidence to suggest its use in children with normally-timed puberty could increase the risk of a complex hormonal condition called polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Symptoms of this syndrome include irregular menstrual cycles and excessive facial and body hair growth.
APEG also said doctors should not prescribe aromatase inhibitor hormone therapy as a 2015 review found a large number of patients later suffered from bone and spine problems.
Professor Fergus Cameron from APEG said these two treatments had "crept from trial into clinical practice" over time because the early results were encouraging.
"They're being used variably across Australia, some centres more than others, but the final story's been told - they have no benefit in certain contexts," he said.
"If it's not working, that's reason enough to stop it, and if it's not working and there's an adverse health outcome, that's twice as much reason."
Dr Catherine Yelland, president of RACP, said the Evolve initiative was having an impact. For many specialist bodies, it will be the first time they're making such recommendations to their members
"They include things like 'don't do X-rays on people with long-term headaches' and 'don't use morphine for migraines'," she said.
She said overtreatment was a serious problem, with too many patients leaving their GP's office with requests for unnecessary blood tests and prescriptions for antibiotics.
"Some are potentially harmful, because they expose people to antibiotics and other medications they don't need," she said.
Choosing Wisely, an initiative by NPS MedicineWise with a similar aim, said patients have an active role to play.
It has encouraged patients to ask their doctors questions such as "what are the risks?", "are there simpler, safer options?" and "what happens if I don't do anything?" to ensure they receive the right amount of care.
