The Truth About Costs

October 16th, 2008 | Posted by Drew | 7:33 am

Bob Laszewski at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review highlights a recently released Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Synthesis Project report authored by Paul Ginsburg from the Center for Studying Health System Change.

High and Rising Health Care Costs: Demystifying U.S. Health Care Spending” is very interesting reading.  This especially:

If the efficiency of the delivery of services could by increased by 20% over 10 years, this would roughly close the gap between health care spending and GDP over that period.

Mr. Laszewski explains:

The bottom line is that if we want to contain our health care costs we need to find productivity improvement in things like technology use, treatment patterns, and administrative overhead.

The big-ticket play is in productivity—the more discriminate use of medical technology, consistently practicing outcomes-based medicine, and reductions in system overhead particularly in the insurance system.

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