A current problem in healthcare is the excessive use of unnecessary medical procedures. Unnecessary procedures lead to misdiagnoses, medical errors, and increased medical cost. IN 2008 it was estimated that the U.S. was spending approximately $700 billion dollars on unnecessary medical test. Peter Orszag, the director of the congressional budget at that time, estimated that five percent of the nation’s gross domestic product went to test and procedures that did not improve health outcomes (Shafrim, 2008). Medical procedures such as MRIs, CT Scans, X-rays, which are among the most common test ordered in emergency departments, and even cesarean sections are among the most unnecessary ordered test and procedure. The National Institute of Health-funded …show more content…
Physicians are often paid on a fee for service basis (Shafrim, 2008). This means that each time a physician orders a test to be run, they are paid. This can result in physicians ordering unnecessary test and procedures for their own personal gain. This is not helping to diagnose the patients or improve their overall health. An increase in these test and procedures also cause insurance companies to raise premiums and deductibles. Insurance companies also begin to impost limitations on certain procedures per year. Once this limit is met then the financial burden is placed on the patient. The insurance company’s limitations are an initiative to help lower the cost on their end. These limits can be a positive however. The limits can force the patient to take charge of their health and speak up when excessive test are …show more content…
When a patient has to undergo numerous tests, there is a waiting period for results which in an emergency room can mean a patient waiting hours for test results that may not find the issue. This leads to other patients not being seen in a timely manner because the staff is busy running unnecessary test. When it comes to c-sections, mothers who undergo these procedures endure a longer hospital stay resulting in a higher bill for both mother and baby. Excessive exposure to radiation also poses a health issue when unnecessary imaging test are ordered. “One study projected 1,200 new cancer cases based on the 2.2 million CT scans done for lower-back pain in the U.S. in 2007”( Consumer Reports Magazine,2012). According to the NEHI, the cost of an average ER visit is $580 more than the cost if a person visited their primary care physician, resulting in a waste of $38 billion each
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).
While it may be harder for staff to discount these costs, understand that tests and X-rays completed at urgent care centers are significantly cheaper than those performed in an ER.
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Dr. Atul Gawande’s article, “Overkill”, describes the harms of overtreatment and over testing to not only the patients, but the US health care system as well. He utilizes patient’s stories, his own personal stories, and expert analysis to inform the readers that the health care system is overdoing tests, over diagnosing, and performing procedures that are extremely expensive, but in the end does not improve the patient’s condition. Dr. Gawande’s argument is that the US health care system is engaging in expensive, unnecessary medical care when they should be adopting a slow medicine philosophy.
FFS is an arrangement under which a health care provide renders treatment or tests to a patient in return for payment. This system encourages physicians and other providers to provide unnecessary services by rewarding volume and intensity of service; the outcome of the FFS system is to increase profits for providers. Because of this volume based arrangement, the FFS model is widely seen as an
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The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).
...d procedures are now being monitored to improve clinical processes. Ensuring that these processes are implemented in a timely, effective manner can also improve the quality of care given to patients. Management of the processes ensures accountability of the effectiveness of care, which, as mentioned earlier, improves outcomes. Lastly, providing reimbursements based on the quality of care and not the quantity also decreases the “wasting” and overuse of supplies. Providers previously felt the need to do more than necessary to meet a certain quota based on a quantity of supplies or other interventions used. Changing this goal can significantly decrease the cost of care due to using on the supplies necessary to provide effective, high-quality care. I look forward to this implementation of change and hope to see others encouraging an increase in high-quality healthcare.
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