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Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#71

Post by podgaj »

dantheman wrote: post #57
podgaj wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this not happening now? Because they hide the prices on purpose. And when I am having a manic episode it is kind of hard for me to search for the cheapest hospital to have myself involuntarily committed. There are just some thing capitalism really sucks at, just admit it.

Emergency care is a tiny portion of all healthcare costs.

In 2017 ED healthcare costs were $76 billion. That is about 10%.

Just go on amazon and try to buy something if you think finding the "cheapest price" would help people get healthcare.

But also, am I supposed to suffer higher prices because of my specific illness that they can charge whatever they want?

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#72

Post by JamesBarney »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #43

What a joke. The only thing that would lower the costs would be to increase the competition, but the government has allowed merger after merger after merger (in health insurance, and in providers, just like everything else lately), taking away more and more pressure to compete. Why is every other ad on TV for one of the car insurance companies? Competition, which drives down price. The way to fix US health care is to…

Health insurance merges help drive down costs.

Provider merges drive up costs.

Health insurance is the buyer of medical care, so when they are monopsony (buyer side monopoly) they drive down costs.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#73

Post by pessimizer »

jostmey wrote: post #2

I agree with the three issues they identify driving up costs. But I fear “Medicare for All” won't fix all the issues, which go much deeper. For example, the US has extremely high standards restricting who can practice medicine compared to the rest of world, limiting the supply of doctors and artificially driving up their demand. There is a need for standards, but perhaps the AMA has too much political influence. Like…

It's not that the standards are high, it's that they are protectionist. I think one of the biggest hurdles is the US residency requirements.

Everything you say is true, though.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#74

Post by sct202 »

jostmey wrote: post #2

I agree with the three issues they identify driving up costs. But I fear “Medicare for All” won't fix all the issues, which go much deeper. For example, the US has extremely high standards restricting who can practice medicine compared to the rest of world, limiting the supply of doctors and artificially driving up their demand. There is a need for standards, but perhaps the AMA has too much political influence. Like…

The supply of doctors in a lot of primary care roles is supplemented by Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants who have less restricted licensing bodies. Like NPs and PAs aren't required to go thru residency and can switch specialties more easily than a doctor.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#75

Post by bilbo0s »

nitwit005 wrote: post #62

Even fairly mundane steps like assigning people uniform medical record numbers, so that every single organization doesn't need its own system, is a heated political issue in the US: https://ehrintelligence.com/news/house-votes-to-overturn-nat...

That's because companies like Epic exist.

Their entire business is fixing impedance mismatches.

Your implicated solution is to eliminate impedance mismatches.

Do you think the major med tech firms will be for or against that? What do you think their lobbyists will recommend?

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#76

Post by signal11 »

laputan_machine wrote: post #64
HDMI_Cable wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is harder in the US. The standards are much higher in the US than anywhere else. The US only accepts doctors who went to Canadian or American medical schools. And then on top of that, it is much harder to get into a medical school here in NA than practically anywhere else, except maybe India. I know that in the UK you can go directly from high school, meanwhile in the US & Canada you need a 515 MCAT, 3.7 GP…

You are either deliberately misleading people or are ignorant of the UK education system. Highschool in the uk ends at 16, you graduate with GCSEs. After this there are 2 extra years of education (compulsory in England), you start university at 18 (at the youngest). Medical schools are competitive and require strong a-level results, typically 3 As (the second highest grade, after A*) [0]. It's a 4 year degree, you th…

From the link numbered [1] above, medical school in the UK is normally five years long. Followed by 2 years of Foundation training, and 5-8 years of specialist training, or 3 years if you go into general practice.

Note that the US education system is more expensive though, so becoming a doctor costs more.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#77

Post by mbesto »

jostmey wrote: post #2

I agree with the three issues they identify driving up costs. But I fear “Medicare for All” won't fix all the issues, which go much deeper. For example, the US has extremely high standards restricting who can practice medicine compared to the rest of world, limiting the supply of doctors and artificially driving up their demand. There is a need for standards, but perhaps the AMA has too much political influence. Like…

You just conflated two partners in the whole mix of what we call "healthcare" in the US.

Payers = Medicare for All, UNH, Aetna, etc.

Providers = Hospitals, doctors, medical supplies, etc.

It's entirely possible to have one payer and then having a governing body regulate a free market[0] comprised of providers in the market.

[0] - I'm using the word free market not in its purest form (which rarely exists) but rather in a more colloquially way.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#78

Post by JamesBarney »

DonnyV wrote: post #29

Worthless paper, administrative costs is only a piece of the many issues with US "Healthcare". Medicare For All is the better and cheaper way forward. No one ever talks about what is the value all these Health Insurance companies bring? The whole point of their existence when they were created was to control costs. Obviously they have failed miserably. Medicare For All handles lowering or eliminating student loans fo…

There are two issues in healthcare. Efficiency and and access.

Medicare for all solves the access problem, but it doesn't do anything for the efficiency problem.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#79

Post by perlgeek »

legulere wrote: post #15

We have standardized health care billing in Germany, both for the around 100 public health insurances and the private ones. We still have a relatively expensive health care system when compared with other European countries.

... and much cheaper than the US, currently.

Re: Researchers chart path to drastically lower administrative costs of health care

#80

Post by pessimizer »

trentnix wrote: post #60
DonnyV wrote: post #29

Worthless paper, administrative costs is only a piece of the many issues with US "Healthcare". Medicare For All is the better and cheaper way forward. No one ever talks about what is the value all these Health Insurance companies bring? The whole point of their existence when they were created was to control costs. Obviously they have failed miserably. Medicare For All handles lowering or eliminating student loans fo…

> Worthless paper, administrative costs is only a piece of the many issues with US "Healthcare". Medicare For All is the better and cheaper way forward. As frustrating and arcane as the current system may be, the government fully in charge for the provisioning (rationing) and financing will only increase 'worthless paper, administrative costs'.

This is clearly not the case with Medicare. The only guaranteed savings with M4A is in administrative costs.

edit: even the researchers in the linked article doesn't claim to reduce administrative overhead as much as M4A, they claim to be able to get most of the way there.

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