Streamlining Billing Can Save Money and Give Doctors More Time to Spend With Their Patients
LOS ANGELES, July 16 – California’s doctors are among the busiest professionals in the state. Consulting with patients, running tests, providing treatments – all of these take time. But one of the biggest demands on doctors’ time doesn’t make help a single patient get better: filling out insurance company paperwork.
Wasteful, duplicative forms, many of which are entirely paper-based, can leave some doctors spending 45 minutes on paperwork for every hour of care they provide. Every insurer has a different form, which must be filled out in its own way, which leads to errors and oversights that must be corrected. And as in so many things, time is money: in total California spends roughly $9 billion just on billing and insurance processing, every single year.
CALPIRG’s new report, Cutting Red Tape in Health Care, examines the ways that administrative inefficiency drives up health care costs.
“California’s families and businesses know that health care costs are high – and rising,” said Mike Russo, Health Care Advocate with CALPIRG. “And one reason is at doctors’ offices, one day of patient visits can create paperwork as thick as a Dickens novel.”
The report highlights steps that have been taken throughout the rest of the country to streamline administrative processes in health care, realizing huge savings and efficiency gains.
“In Utah, providers and insurers came together to create a high-tech, streamlined network where doctors only need to fill out one form,” explained Russo. “Cutting the red tape means that patients and doctors in Utah see their claims processed six times faster than the national average.”
In New England, industry leaders formed a similar nonprofit organization to reduce administrative costs. Standardizing forms and coding, and building a similar secure computer network, have reduced costs, and the amount of staff time doctors must devote to insurance and billing.
“The New England model is so effective, participants can recoup the costs of setting up the system in just one year,” continued Russo.
The examples of Utah and New England show that California’s annual $9 billion check for billing could be significantly reduced.
“Everybody benefits from the lower costs administrative streamlining can provide,” noted Russo. “Doctors, insurers, and most of all, patients – less paperwork means better care.”
The report recommends that California encourage the development of a streamlined health care billing system, by convening stakeholders, setting standards, and providing short-term loans to jump-start the network.
“If Utah can do it, so can we,” Russo concluded.
The report is available here.
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