This is a huge problem in US health care financing: we have a fee-for-service model, no price transparency, and a consumer base (insulated from a lot of the costs of procedures by indirect payment through employer-provided insurance) conditioned to think procedures are inherently good. We waste billions annually on procedures that shouldn't be delivered at all.
I'm fond of pointing out the stat (true as of a year ago) that Massachusetts (I think it's MA?) has more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada.
People love to complain about health insurance companies denying claims and prior authorization requests. While there are frequent errors and abuses on the payer side, the reality is that about a fifth of all treatments are "low value care" which aren't justified by evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and may even harm patients. If we want to reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes then we've got to get that under control.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
I'm fond of pointing out the stat (true as of a year ago) that Massachusetts (I think it's MA?) has more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada.
nradov · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/price-we-pay-9781635574128/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/price-we-pay-9781635574128/