Lets face it, at a staggering $3.3 trillion in 2016, healthcare expenses in the United States is expensive. Many healthcare systems are left cash strapped, throwing the burden onto patients, who end up facing really high costs. Luckily, there are better ways to save money, creating a win-win situation for all.
Technology in healthcare is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it offers innovation. On the other hand, it results in pretty high costs.
In the U.S., new technology has a patent system that is cumbersome. If a patient requires a patented life-saving medicine or medical management, the patient is required by law to pay the set price implemented by the patent holder. The insurance company and the government are not able to decrease this cost, despite the patients need. Some experts contend that new technology may not always be the best option. Others advocate that the single actions prone to direct healthcare increases over the long term are either the stoppage or avoidance of new medical technology. This means limiting new technology and complete rationing are the single two alternatives that allow sustainable answers. A possible option for long-term reform that some would suggest would be to change the current patent system, so as to avoid monopolies and guarantee that companies face competition to drive the costs down.
Solving these issues requires asking pertinent questions during the capital budgeting process.
Does the needed newer equipment stand for enhanced technology and not just the latest trend? Will the technology overwhelmingly impact the safety and superiority of operative procedures, cardiac catheterization, colonoscopy, and many other procedures and, consequently considerably influence cost management? This is especially important if these new technologies can curtail the time it takes to become skilled, thereby decreasing staff and physicians training time and costs.
Given the sky-scraping costs exhausted on healthcare in the U.S. — the federal government spent $672.1 billion on Medicare in 2016 — most of the healthcare issues stem around decreasing spending, which has negatively affected reimbursement to hospitals and physicians. Medicare uses a fee-for-service mode, which is known as the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) payment system, based on a resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS). Generally, this modus operandi for the PFS payment schedule works according to modifications in volume. CMS has announced the need to drastically cut down on Medicare reimbursement. In order to capitalize on reimbursement, healthcare systems need to be using the most up-to-date billing system and make sure reimbursement codes are accurate and precise to guarantee immediate payments and avoid any issues dealing with fraud…
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