$800 Billion: The Amount US Healthcare Industry ‘Wasted’ in 2011

24-Aug-2012 - United Kingdom

Avoidable care, incompetent hospital management and administrations scams accounted for an astonishing $800-$900 billion in unnecessary healthcare expenditure in the US last year, according to the latest findings of business intelligence experts GBI Research.

The new report, Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement - Adoption of Health Technology Assessments (HTA) Optimizes Drug Pricing and Accelerates Reimbursement Decision-Making, contrasts the astronomical figure with the total US government healthcare budget, which for 2012 stands at a comparable $1.1 trillion.

Hugely excessive waste across the nation’s healthcare system contributes significant to unnecessary treatment costs. Medical practitioners may prescribe branded products where cheaper generic alternatives may be issued for the same condition, while patients who miss scheduled pharmaceutical treatments can incur extra costs such as laboratory tests and physician visits.

Wastage can also occur when medications for patients with acute conditions are not delivered in time, rendering the treatment redundant and resulting in considerable damage to the patient.

The US spends the most in the world on healthcare – 17.9% of GDP in 2010 – and has been continually expanding, even during the global economic recession, as other developed countries such as the UK, Germany and Italy have been forced to reduce healthcare expenditure.

Thanks in part to President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), US government spending on healthcare is forecast to continue to increase in size, reaching $1.6 trillion by 2017.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/139376/800-billion-the-amount-us-healthcare-industry-wasted-in-2011.html