Drivers of Labor Cost in Healthcare
Labor cost is driven by a care that is given in fragments or is uncoordinated. Today’s health care has seen an increase in specialized physician that treat specific types of illness or injuries. Since most facilities are separate entities, the patient is subjected to repeat exams each time a patient is seen by the next specialist. Electronic records are separate to each facility, while can be shared, my not provide the next specialist physician with the information he or she is familiar with to evaluate the illness or injury, prompting the physician to order a repeat radiologic or lab test at his or her facility. Electronic records shared between providers and physicians communicating to one another what they require to better care for patients before one is referred will drive down this labor cost.
Most patient have a lack of consideration for the cost of health care because he or she does not pay for the entire bill. Insurance companies are left to pay the balances after the patient pays the contracted deductible or co-pay, leading to an attitude from the patient that does not care if there is a more efficient way to have care provided as long as the results lead to successful resolution to the illness or injury. This mind set benefits the health care facilities charging for the duplicated exams but cost the customers of the insurance company more in the long run. Informing patients to the steady rise of cost of their premium if consideration of the cost of their care is not given could help to remedy this cost driver.
Advanced medical technologies and procedures that have the privilege of access to are very expensive and, in a lot of cases, over used. Patients will receive the more expensive exams that can help diagnose there problem instead of using a progression of exams to find out what is wrong. For example, a patient is presented at the Emergency Room with right lower abdomen pain. Instead of using a clinical examination of the patient to attempt to narrow down what is wrong before ordering a Radiology exam, the physician ordered the more expensive MRI exam which will provide the most detail of the patient’s abdomen. The correct progression of treatment beginning with a proper bedside clinical analysis would have help narrow down what could be causing the pain in the patient’s abdomen, leading to a less costly CT exam that would have given the physician the correct cause of the pain. Though, this a small amount of difference in cost, multiplied over the country’s Emergency Room care would save an insurance company million’s, lowering the premium paid by their customers.
Labor cost is driven by a care that is given in fragments or is uncoordinated. Today’s health care has seen an increase in specialized physician that treat specific types of illness or injuries. Since most facilities are separate entities, the patient is subjected to repeat exams each time a patient is seen by the next specialist. Electronic records are separate to each facility, while can be shared, my not provide the next specialist physician with the information he or she is familiar with to evaluate the illness or injury, prompting the physician to order a repeat radiologic or lab test at his or her facility. Electronic records shared between providers and physicians communicating to one another what they require to better care for patients before one is referred will drive down this labor cost.
Most patient have a lack of consideration for the cost of health care because he or she does not pay for the entire bill. Insurance companies are left to pay the balances after the patient pays the contracted deductible or co-pay, leading to an attitude from the patient that does not care if there is a more efficient way to have care provided as long as the results lead to successful resolution to the illness or injury. This mind set benefits the health care facilities charging for the duplicated exams but cost the customers of the insurance company more in the long run. Informing patients to the steady rise of cost of their premium if consideration of the cost of their care is not given could help to remedy this cost driver.
Advanced medical technologies and procedures that have the privilege of access to are very expensive and, in a lot of cases, over used. Patients will receive the more expensive exams that can help diagnose there problem instead of using a progression of exams to find out what is wrong. For example, a patient is presented at the Emergency Room with right lower abdomen pain. Instead of using a clinical examination of the patient to attempt to narrow down what is wrong before ordering a Radiology exam, the physician ordered the more expensive MRI exam which will provide the most detail of the patient’s abdomen. The correct progression of treatment beginning with a proper bedside clinical analysis would have help narrow down what could be causing the pain in the patient’s abdomen, leading to a less costly CT exam that would have given the physician the correct cause of the pain. Though, this a small amount of difference in cost, multiplied over the country’s Emergency Room care would save an insurance company million’s, lowering the premium paid by their customers.