The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has published a detailed report regarding waste of money in the U.S. healthcare, which reaches up to $750 annually. The political parties are trying to reduce spending in Medicare but they still don’t have any idea how to reduce the budget. The amount of $750 wasted cannot be ignored. It is estimated that approximately 30% of healthcare spending in 2009 (approximately $750 billion) was wasted on unnecessary services, high administrative costs, fraud, and various other problems. The healthcare provider’s current method of training, practicing, and learning new information is not adequate. Healthcare organizations’ approach towards care delivery has to improve considerably. Another important thing is to monitor closely how providers are paid for their services to avoid overspending.
Better use of data is an important factor for continuously improving the healthcare system. Approximately 75 million Americans have more than one chronic disease or problem which needs coordination among specialist doctors and therapies. Lack of coordination can gradually increase the potential for miscommunication, misdiagnosis, and dangerous drug intake.
The committee noted that mobile technologies, electronic health records, and accurate medical coding play a major role in capturing and sharing health data better. So, medical coding companies can play a major role in this respect. The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, IT developers, and standard-setting organizations should ensure error free systems, the report says. Clinicians and Medicare organizations should adopt the new, efficient technology for better performance.
The committee recommended that more transparency in costs and outcomes of healthcare will increase the opportunity to learn and improve things.
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