Humans often desire improvement in their lifestyle, and would trust people who claim to have a remedy. Although many remedies do not actually seem to help particular situations, they are still regularly sold to paying clients. Unnecessary health care is profitable to the provider, and costly to the receiver without any benefits to their health. It may however be harmful. This applies to conventional, alternative and complimentary medicine.

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The reasons for offering unnecessary care include:

• Healthcare providers trying to increase their profit 

• Defensive practice: caregivers trying to cover 'all aspects of care' even if it is unnecessary: this may be seen as reducing their chances of being sued by the client 

• Self-referral by the client: Patients demand to have a test, treatment or surgery that is not needed 

• Poor practice and misleading advertisement by the care provider. Examples include:

1. Yearly cervical Cancer screening for women with normal pap smear

2. HPV test results Screening cancer patients in an advanced state for other cancers

3. Using Antibiotics for Virus Infections 

4. Performing unnecessary blood and radiological tests 

• Uninformed Government policy