Where is the Waste in Health Spending?

Up to 25% of health spending in the US is wasteful. Where is that money being lost? What can we do about it?

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Credits:
John Green -- Executive Producer
Stan Muller -- Director, Producer
Aaron Carroll -- Writer
Mark Olsen – Art Director
Tiffany Doherty -- Writer and Script Editor
Meredith Danko – Social Media

#healthcaretriage #healthcare #healthspending

[lewtenant_k]

Is there a reason transparency of hospital prices isn't listed as an intervention to reduce price inefficiencies? The whole "free market" idea kind of hinges on knowing the prices *before* you spend the money.

[lohphat]

CEOs, ad budgets, admin overhead paper-pushing, and "shareholder value".

[forgotn]

Pretty sure insurance companies are one of the biggest wastes of money in the system.

[harshbarj]

Want to greatly eliminate waste, eliminate insurance companies. Each company has redundant positions that would be unnecessary with government run healthcare.Another step could be elimination of hospital networks (companies). Have a single healthcare system that all hospitals are owned by and operated under, again eliminating redundant and wasteful positions.

[NewMateo]

God I love Canada. I broke my hand and within 1 day I was in a cast and in a week I was under the knife. Went to physio for a while and got my functioning back. The whole ordeal cost me whatever I ate for lunch each day while in the hospital. Apparently it would have cost me thousands in America.

[chessplayer]

SINGLE PAYER WILL SAVE US 200 BILLION PER YEAR IN WASTEFUL ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS??? DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT??

[victorco.]

We need single payer system for working people. People still don't understand, health care cannot be a free market. Free markets require, among other things, price transparency (hospitals do not disclose costs), competition (in many places there is only one hospital available), etc. Only single insurance company has the power to negotiate a fair contract and fair prices for consumers.

[dvklaveren]

Imagine if the US government declared a national emergency over it's healthcare system. Because it is. Imagine that for 6 months or a year, the military set up military-grade administration and logistics networks. I'm not saying this is a good idea, but I'm just thinking about what a security risk the healthcare system of the US really is.

[MyNameIsntRyan]

Hey Triage, would you consider looking over the healthcare plan Andrew Yang has proposed? He has proposed a healthcare plan that looks very different to what other Democrats are putting forward. And while he does want to expand Medicare, he thinks we need to prioritize tackling individual issues in the industry. I'd love to hear someone's opinion on the matter who is very educated as he's faced some criticism for taking the stance he has. Thanks!

[phantomkate]

I'm really curious to learn about where the waste is in Canada's systems. Would have to focus on one or more provinces separately, as there are differences.

[whychoooseausername]

One example of waste I encountered today : GPs putting older patients with CV risk factors on preventative doses of aspirin when there is no formal indication, out of habit or excess of "precaution" (and this is the best researched area of medicine, so there really is no excuse to fiddle with modern guidelines for the overwhelming majority of patients). While the cost of that medication is 2, 05 euros a month, there's a significant increase in the risk of hemorrhagic complications, which can cost in the hundreds and thousands to treat, and result in significant and long lasting impairments or death.

[TheWolphren]

When my spouse was giving birth, the hospital blood typed her even though her OB had her typed and the labs sent to the hospital with us. When I pointed this out, I was told it was hospital policy to test everyone giving birth regardless of whether they have been typed before....And my insurance paid for it! That is definitely waste we can fix!

[bluejedi]

What are your thoughts on the woman who got billed $20 grand only to find out her sore throat was just a cold?

[Kaliraptor]

it would be helpful if you preface 'JAMA' with it's full name "The Journal of the American Medical Association". Not everyone will recognize it or its authority.

[jankelsey]

Nothing discussed in this video sounds complicated. Administrative costs and excessive service costs estimated at 500 billion annually is simply unacceptable. That's 5 trillion over ten years! Either stringent price controls or negotiations via a single payer system is simply a matter of political will for this moral necessity for the entire psychological, health and financial well being of this nation.

[matthew]

Inefficiencies include paying me to call BCBS to sit on the line with a robot that can't hear or understand me that will read what I already read when I logged into their web portal that then finally let's me talk to a human that answers my question in 5 minutes, hopefully correctly. Please. Single payer so I don't have to spend hours finding what client's coverage actually is, communicating it to the client and practitioner, and then entering it into our system and hoping I'm correct the first time. Fun fact, when you verify coverage, insurance stipulates what they tell you is not a guarantee of coverage and that determination is made at the time of the claim (after the service is rendered).

[NotShowingOff]

He Should just say that in regulated profits drive the costs up. Ppl need healthcare. That’s not really a market.

[tabaks]

Waste in health spending is paying 10-100 fold higher prices for equal level care as elsewhere!

[Praisethesunson]

Administrators are a waste. Get rid of them.

[frankm.]

The guy said if payments to hospitals are lowered quality may degrade..