$300 billion: By wiring healthcare
and creating protocols for compliance, upwards of $300 Billion could be saved annually.
Source: Rand Corporation *
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emailRecent Comments About $300 Billion
Okay, let's say the $300
Okay, let's say the $300 billion savings is accurate. Current plans for universal health insurance put forward by Congress are estimated to cost...
By Jason H : July 22, 10:27am
God help us if congress
God help us if congress passes current ideas.
By Bill Nevins : July 25, 11:46am
I don't believe that wiring
I don't believe that wiring healthcare will save one cent. HIPAA requires the use of compliant electronic health records (EHR)or practitioners are...
By km h : July 31, 11:48am
Comments
Submitted by km h : July 31, 3:48pm
I don't believe that wiring healthcare will save one cent. HIPAA requires the use of compliant electronic health records (EHR)or practitioners are not paid. This caused billions of dollars in practioner IT investment that has been passed on in their increased prices. Automated charting will require a complete overhaul of the regulatory system and isn't included in HR3200.
The real issue is to address the cost drivers that keep helathcare costs increasing.
The cost drivers (economics term for the underlying causes that drive costs)in heathcare are:
(1) insurance pool competition
(a) state regulatory actions drive smaller risk pool sizes
(b) company competition for pool market share through initial
price discounting drive premium costs upward
(2) unregulated legal and settlement costs of liability litigation,
(a) drives the cost of insurance premiums
(b) drives the need for defensive medicine practices
(3) costs of new or upgraded competative facilities
(a) facility costs/bed have driven increases of 400% in 10 yrs.
(b) facility architecture concentrates on non-medical issues
(4) pharmaceutical costs increasing utilization of prescription
drugs; newer, higher-priced drugs replacing older, less-
expensive drugs; and manufacturer price increases for existing
drugs
(a) spending on perscription drugs doubled in the last 5 yrs.
(b) little market price competition, and
(c) savings due to new drugs reducing total treatment costs
(5) cost shifting (providers of medical care adjust the prices they
charge to private insurance payers in order to offset losses in
other areas) increased costs (17% in New Hampshire)
(a) uninsured patient costs
(b) underpaid services, medicare and medicaid underpayment of
billed costs
(6) payment by protocol instead of by result: payment, National
Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), “The U.S. health care
system is still quantity, not quality, of care. This
contributes to widespread variations in the way health care is
delivered – from failure to deliver needed care, to huge
numbers of unnecessary procedures that drive up costs and
endanger patients.”
I haven't included the two politically contentious cost drivers: (1) over-utilization and (2) lifestyle management. In a speech at Harvard Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), argued that a very large percentage of patients would experience spontaneous recovery if they were just forced to wait before being treated.
The second is the concept of managing personal lifestyles through legislation. Any such regulastion would place a premium on the cost of insurance or treatment to those whose are identified as leading unhealthy lifestyles. This would, at the very least, adversely affect the poor who can't afford such a regressive lifestyle penalty.
Reference List
Moroney, S. D.(2003, February). Understanding Health Care Cost Drivers.
National Institute of Health Policy.
National Association of Health Underwriters. (2006, August 1). White
Paper on Health Care Cost Drivers
Orszag. P. (2008, October). New Ideas About Human Behavior in Economics
and Medicine. 8th Annual Marshall J. Seidman Lectureat Harvard
Medical School, Mass.
Submitted by Bill Nevins : July 25, 3:46pm
God help us if congress passes current ideas.
Submitted by Jason H : July 22, 2:27pm
Okay, let's say the $300 billion savings is accurate. Current plans for universal health insurance put forward by Congress are estimated to cost anywhere from $1,000 billion ($1 trillion) to $3,600 billion ($3.6 trillion). The Director of the Congressional Budget Office just testified last week that none of the current plans cover this amount or reduce govt. health care spending, but actually increase spending. Also, do you honestly believe that a universal health insurance plan run by the government would actually reduce paperwork and bureaucracy, or increase it?
Submitted by jenny lynn : July 22, 9:38am
ok yeah i know alot of people with health problems and they dont get the benefits they need.. so yeah i think it would be great to spend more money on health care..
Submitted by cre8veheart : July 21, 10:08pm
Seems reasonable to allow those in profession to draw up reform and leave those who put dollars before human life return to their anti-American foundation and humanistic microcosoms
Submitted by Anonymous M : July 20, 2:41pm
You are talking about not having a socialist system; yet, you are not offering any solutions for all the people who are poor and cannot afford health coverage.
No one is talking about converting healthcare to socialized medicine. We are talking about government working to contribute to solutions to problems we can no longer ignore because of the recession. If the current system is not working, the government has to fix it or many people will suffer.
I think whatever we can do to save money on healthcare and not significantly increase the deficit is a good thing. So, if converting to electronic records can save healthcare a lot of money, let's do it!
People don't want excuses and inaction is not an option. It is very cold to say we will do nothing to help people who are less fortunate. This is a time when we need to be more charitable.
This is not a free country, if healthcare is not accessible to everyone. Positive actions that empower and help people, not just words.
Submitted by peter : July 20, 7:44am
We need a fat tax. Everyone pays for every 10 lbs they are over their standard weight. Sin tax like booze and tabacco.
Submitted by tonyt : July 18, 1:27am
How can we talk about reform and savings when medicaid and medicare are as inefficient as this administration. So instead of fixing these failures or even addressing job loss, irresponsible spending, the deficit, or providing healthcare to millions of illegals.We should go to a single payor healthcare system because humana, blue cross, aetna, or cigna cannot print money or tax the country to compete with a govt system. Reform is needed but not by the government which has caused the problem!! Please do not destroy the greatest healthcare system in the world for an experiement that has failed in canada and europe
Submitted by Anapaula : July 17, 2:48pm
We need to leave Healthcare alone. GOing towards a socalist type healthcare would be very bad. We should use Canada and the countries as examples on what not to do!!
Submitted by Michael S : July 12, 7:27pm
Look at the original source material. It says: "[I]f health care could produce productivity gains similar to those in telecommunications, retail, or wholesale . . . [there would be] an average annual spending decrease of $346 billion, and the upper end, $813 billion."
This is a pretty ludicrous statement. The health-care industry is completely different from the retail and telecommunications industry. The gains in retail may have come from increasing economies of scale (i.e. walmart) and decreasing quality (i.e. made in china). Neither can be easily reproduced in the healthcare industry. The telecommunications industry is highly reliant on technology, so of course it will have a proportionally larger efficiency gain when technology improves.
Submitted by william w : July 11, 11:35pm
Until computers change bedpans, IT isn't going to have much impact on patient care.
Each person is unique, and responds differently to different treatments. Pencillin can save a life, or cause anaphylactic shock and kill another.
Hence all this stuff about the "one best treatment" looks good to bureaucrats with a line item budet ... but ridiculous to doctors.
Submitted by expert : July 11, 9:49am
A lie. Calif has tried for years to automate and every proram effort has failed - cost multi-millions and mostly inefficient. To try this on national level (accuracy dependent on hundreds/thousands of low paid, poorly educated data input workers). It's all about control and shifting 20 pct of the economy from private sector to the GOVERMENT. Do we really want them running health care? READ all about other coubtries' problems with socialized medicine. Begin with the inevitable need to ration care for seniors.
Submitted by Bruce C : July 10, 11:32pm
I worked in the filing of medical records in a hospital. Quality is bad because they jam treatment reports in the latest patient file they can find on the shelf, the folder is organized only when a patient is admitted. Often I saw stacks of papers to be filed. They use the finest font size in print because, I was told, they got complaints that the 2nd and 3rd pages were getting lost so they condensed the information onto one page. We had stacks of papers unidentified, one I found was of an elderly neighbor whom was treated years ago, still to be filed but I got it filed. Amazed that thousands of dollars treatment in an emergency could be reduced to something un-intelligible, tiny, and on onion-skin thin paper.
I'm skeptical that the cost of digitizing records would save money. Most who worked in records were in the 10 to 12 dollar wage, as a temp I made 7.60 but the hospital was charged 14. The day shifts were big teams of up to 20. There is just so much to process. Everything on hard copy now existing (a rail car packed full) would have to be scanned. I know too, that when you say digital records, the doctors that scribble will likely still do so and throw their reports on someone's desk, then they will go to the records department waiting there for a scanning team to work on them. Is that what is planned? Better if the records were inputted directly to the system, that is the only way to speed things along. I doubt that you can bail a whole system out with savings if any was to be had in digitizing, but direct input would be the way to do it for quality of care. Buy some big monitors, higher than wide.
Submitted by Marianne R : July 8, 10:28pm
"wiring" a business and "creating protocols for compliance" may work in a MacDonald's, but as a health care professional, may I remind you that the product is not a hamburger, it is a good health outcome for a person.
I work in medical IT and the number of hours in time, and the cost factors involved in setting up "wired healthcare" are far greater than the public understands.
The exact protocol to treat a fever is exhauting to define - the fever is a symptom of thousands of medical problems. Attempts at "protocols for compliance" have been harsh and will always lead to rationing and medical decisions made by pencil pushers.
The variety and complexity of treating patients is extrordinary. Medicine is still, in great part, an art of the doctor-patient relationship rather than a business. Getting rid of nutty regulations and burdensome reporting requirements - now that may actually save more than 300 Billion.
Submitted by E K : July 6, 7:10pm
Electronic systems are great when there is power. Think Katrina, blizzard, tornado, ice storms, etc. What is the back-up plan when there is a disaster? Better be a good secondary solution when systems aren't available or we are very much hurting ourselves.
Submitted by Jen L : July 7, 8:57am
On the contrary, electronic records are backed up on servers in separate locations, which actually makes them more reliable than paper systems that will get washed or blown away in a flood or tornado. And the hardware can be powered by back-up generators and batteries if the power is out.
Submitted by B R : July 5, 11:48am
Having used electronic medical records in the past, I am happy not to have to use them now. The software and hardware companies promise the savings of lives and money, which is a statement that is not supported with unbiased data that originates from double-blind, controlled studies. Claims are easy to make but in the end as is often the case, the promises do not pan out. Until you have a single system throughout the country that is linked to each and every hospital, you will have the same system you have now on paper, but each and every hospital will simply have it electronically. If you really think that by having endless information at thousands of hospitals that cannot be linked or accessed by an outside facility is going to save money, you are sadly mistaken. The winners will be the companies that provide the technology as they sell their wares and in the end healthcare will only end up costing more, not less. Spending money on infrastructure, which I believe will not lead to enhanced efficiency is only gong to add to the bottom line.
Submitted by Tanya W : July 2, 8:56am
If there is anything out there that could save the governent any money, i'm sure it isn't this. It seems like the easiest way is always the hardest way for gov't to go. I agree that giving incentives to those that can save taxpayers money is great. The thing about all of this is that the people need to really slam our officils with What We Want, we need to remember that they work for us.
Submitted by Jen L : July 1, 11:19am
According a 2007 study by the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE), only 50 percent of Americans typically adhere to their medication regimen leading to unnecessary disease progression, disease complications, reduced functional abilities, a lower quality of life or death; and cost the health care system approximately $177 billion annually in direct and indirect costs.
Medication adherence and compliance can go a long way in reducing our nation's healthcare bill...
Submitted by Anonymous B : July 2, 8:02am
My experience has been that doctors prescribe pharmaceutical drugs BEFORE recommending healthy alternatives. You sound like a representative of Big Pharma, and I would question the statistics that you quote. The most effective alternative in preventing unnecessary disease progression, reduced functional abilities, etc is Preventive Care so that the "medication regimen" is made totally unnecessary, therefore reducing the cost of our nation's healthcare bill.
Submitted by Anonymous : June 29, 2:36pm
Savings is all well and good - but no one is talking about the upfront cost of putting in systems that provide those savings and the vested interest of folks that will provide those systems.
Submitted by Tanya W : July 2, 8:59am
Everything has a price, we need to get behind companies that embrace us as human beings, doing what is right will cost money but what w have going right now might be costing some their lives. Just give us a break.
Submitted by Anonymous Arlette L : June 24, 3:48pm
I absolutely believe that billions can be saved by wiring healthcare and creating protocols and compliance.
Case and point as an individual who pays 100% of my healthcare insurance, I wouldn't have to go back and forth trying to prove to my provider that my recent bone density test is part of my two year well care up-keep; and their request for proof that I was covered with some form of insurance when I first had this test.
In wiring this information, and through some form of protocol, the information would be available, without denial of payment to the service provider.
Instead they are threatening to reject the claim submitted for $182.00.
This is ludicris! Now I am stressing, because our healthcare system is so backwards, when it comes to institutions, and service providers coordinating patients information.
We are always going to be sick from unrequired and needless stress.
As a tax paying American, I would like to see us bring information up to the twenty first century.
Thanks
AL