Overview of Waste In Health Care

Reducing Waste In Health Care.  Health Affairs--Health Policy Briefs.  December 13, 2012.

Eliminating Fraud And Abuse.  Health Affairs--Health Policy Briefs.  July 31. 2012.

These two briefs together provide a comprehensive basic overview of the waste problem in health care. A couple of randomly selected highlights:

*Every line of each  of Medicare's daily 4.5 million fee-for-services claims is examined by advanced analytic models to spot fraud.

*Eastern European crime organizations have been traced to some cases of Medicare fraud.

*"Adverse events" occur in one-third of hospital admissions according to a 2011 study.

*Small physician practices incur four times the administrative costs of small physician practices in Canada, where physicians have to interact with a single payer agency.