Chapter 5. An Uncomfortable Truth
Healthcare waste is frequently defined as healthcare that does not add quality or improve patients’ outcomes. The latest data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) indicates that healthcare spend went up by 4.6% in 2019, reaching $3.6 trillion. As a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), health spend accounted for nearly 18% of overall spend. The healthcare spend distribution was 33% for hospital care services, 20% for clinician services, and 9% for retail prescription drug costs, with the rest accounted for by several subcategories, including dental care, home healthcare, home medical supplies, and nursing home care.
A 2019 article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by William Shrank, Teresa L. Rogstad, and Natasha Parekh estimates that 25% of our healthcare spend results in healthcare waste.1 That amounts to anywhere from $760 billion to $935 billion in waste. The article breaks down healthcare cost waste into six main areas: failure of care delivery, $102.4 billion to $165.7 billion; failure of care coordination, $27.2 billion to $78.2 billion; overtreatment or low-value care, $75.7 billion to $101.2 billion; pricing failure, $230.7 billion to $240.5 billion; fraud and abuse, $58.5 billion to $83.9 billion; and administrative complexity, $265.6 billion. This amount of waste is high, but it can be addressed by using AI to improve operational efficiency and facilitate clinical care. ...
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