Specialization in health care means more cost to the system

It’s the unfortunate reality that while increased specialization of labor in health care can result in better care, it most certainly results in more expensive care.  This is going to be an issue until we find a way to pay more for “brain time” or “cognitive medicine.”

From, the NY Times: Let Doctors Bid for Medicare Business

Researchers have observed that having one additional specialist (per 100,000 people) in a region leads to about $13 more in health care spending per Medicare patient. New York City, for instance, has 186 specialists for every 100,000 residents, which is twice as many as Albany’s 93. Accordingly, Medicare spends $12,114 a year treating each patient in New York City, but only $5,950 in Albany.

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Tannus Quatre PT, MBA is a private practice consultant and principal with Vantage Clinical Solutions, Inc., a nationwide healthcare consulting and management firm located in Bend, OR and Denver, CO.  Tannus specializes in the areas of healthcare marketing, strategy, and finance, and can be reached through the Vantage Clinical Solutions website.

One response to “Specialization in health care means more cost to the system”

1. Cheryl BryantBruce, M.D. writes:
   

   As someone who was trained in primary care and has delivered primary care and preventive medicine to my patients for 20 years, I am not in agreement that specialization of labor in health care does result in better health care. When healthcare gets too fragmented and the right hand does not know what the left is doing, medical errors can occur. Medical errors can be expensive. They can cost a LIFE! Additionally, if patients are being managed and educated by primary care physicians with a preventive health/ wellness management approach, then we can for the most part prevent them from getting sick in the first place, which definitely results in huge savings in health care.

   @ June 17th, 2009 at 21:49