Thursday, July 3, 2014

Waste, Errors In Health Care Remain Huge Issues, Experts Agree

Politico: Waste, Errors In Health Care Remain Huge Issues, Experts Agree
Despite health care industry concerns about wasteful and unnecessary care, it’s nearly impossible for patients to overrule their doctors when they think they’re getting a procedure they don’t need, a prominent patient care advocate argued Tuesday. “I’ve had four unnecessary EKGs,” Daniel Wolfson, executive vice president of the ABIM Foundation, said at a POLITICO Pro Health Care breakfast briefing at the Newseum. “I think it’s an uphill battle for the patient to talk a physician out of a procedure.” Overtreatment and preventable medical errors are huge drivers of health care costs and lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, but action to reverse both continues to lag, noted Leah Binder, CEO of The Leapfrog Group, a health safety advocate that represents employers (Cheney, 7/1).

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