Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Health Experts Grapple Over Best Agency to Lead Paperwork Reduction Effort

Clark, Charles, S. "Health Experts Grapple Over Best Agency to Lead Paperwork Reduction Effort." Government Executive, June 13, 2012.


From the article: Improved coordination and integration of billing and patient data systems could save the health care system as much as $40 billion annually, a panel of experts agreed on Monday. But the insurers, physicians and health policy analysts could not settle on which federal office or private sector authority should lead the charge.

At a panel discussion of a new report on reducing health care administrative costs put on by the Center for American Progress, disagreement also surfaced on whether the current movement to switch from paper medical records to a standardized electronic system is a feasible time-and-cost saver.

David Cutler, a professor of applied economics at Harvard University who in 2008 advised then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on health care, noted that administrative costs account for 14 percent of health care expenses, “twice what we spend on heart disease and three times what we spend on cancer,” he said. “Office support is the biggest occupation in the health care field,” and just as Wal-Mart is the big entity that sets information technology standards in the retail field, “the only comparable player in health care is the federal government.”
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See also
Wikler, Elizabeth,  Peter Basch, and David M. Cutler.  "3 Strategies for Reducing Health Care Administrative Costs."  Center for American Progress, June 11, 2012.

Wikler, Elizabeth,  Peter Basch, and David M. Cutler.  "Paper Cuts: Reducing Health Care Administrative Costs."  Center for American Progress, June 11, 2012.