No Lines, No Waiting

Five Ways Health Care Wastes Time and Money

I can think of few more maddening ways to spend my time than waiting for medical attention.  I, for one, have switched doctors due to inept appointment scheduling in the past, and the scrutiny the health care system has taken of late in the media further illustrates the problem – we are wasting time and money in doctor’s offices and emergency rooms.

According to CNNMoney.com, more than $1.2 trillion spent on health care each year is wasted.  Let’s take a look at some causes and present some possible solutions.  Continue reading after video >>

Five Causes:

• Repeat visits to the hospital
• Overuse of emergency rooms
• Ineffective technology
• Paperwork overload
• Long lines seeking or paying for health care

Five Possible Solutions:

• Penalize or reward hospitals to help prevent unnecessary repeat visits
• Reduce ER use by reforming healthcare so people have a primary physician. It’ll take time, but it’s the right thing to do.
• Modernize.  Healthcare is the last big industry that’s just starting to discover modern business practices.
• Change from paper-based records to electronic medical records. The Federal stimulus bill of 2009 provides tens of billions of dollars in incentives for adoption of electronic medical record systems. This too will take time to have impact, but that’s been true of every industry that’s modernized. It took banks ten years to get it right with online banking; let’s get started.
• Effective time management programs and tools

Ultimately, technological advances, proper education, and more efficient time management programs could mean better use of time, money and services.

On the issue of modernizing, keep an eye out: TimeTrade is preparing a series of podcasts on just this subject. It’s good – we’ll post here as each one is released.

Brian DeRoy
TimeTrade Blogging Team

Posted by TimeTrade Blogging Team