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The Goodman Institute Health Blog

How Much Waste in Health Care?

Posted on February 19, 2023 by John C. Goodman

A recent analysis from the Peterson Foundation found that the U.S. is spending over $1,000 per person on administrative costs, “five times more than the average of other wealthy countries and more than we spend on preventive or long-term healthcare.”

A piece by Dr. Robert Kocher published in 2013 in the Harvard Business Review found that over 22 years (1990– 2012), there was a 75% increase in the number of workers in our nation’s health system, but the overwhelming majority (95%) were in non-doctor positions. In fact, for every one doctor there were sixteen non-doctor workers, and 10 of those were “purely administrative and management staff, receptionists and information clerks, and office clerks.” The sheer size of the administrative arm of American health care had become daunting.

Bill Frist at Forbes

2 thoughts on “How Much Waste in Health Care?”

  1. John Fembup says:
    February 19, 2023 at 7:46 pm

    So let’s federalize the thing to cut red tape.

    Wait. Whut?

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    Reply
  2. Bob Hertz says:
    February 20, 2023 at 4:02 pm

    I have been following The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, a doctor-owned facility that does not take insurance.

    According to their website, the Center has 29 full time employees. 6 are doctors, 6 are nurses,
    then you have billers and schedulers, a couple of facilities staff, receptionists, et al.

    Quite a contrast to the typical hospital.

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For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.

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John C. Goodman,

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