The cost of interacting with insurance plans averages a whopping $68,274 per year per physician in America’s clinics according to this important study funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund, and published in Health Affairs. Administrative costs in general — and particularly those related to dealing with insurance — have been the subject of a lot of attention in the current debate on health care reform.
The study gets into the details of why it is such a critical issue for practicing physicians. Not only is it a major cost of doing business, it takes time away from clinicians that could otherwise be spent with patients. On average in each practice, the time to interact with health plans is an enormous time consumer. For each physician
- The physicians themselves spend nearly 3 weeks
per year (about 3.5 hours per week), - RN/MA/LPNs spend over 19 hours per week per physician, and
- Clerical staff spends a whopping 36 hours per week per physician!
And the time consumed varies inversely with the size of the clinic, with physicians in smaller practices (1-2 physicians) spending considerably more time on these tasks than those in larger groups. Similarly, Primary Care physicians spend the most time, and specialists spend the least.
These findings are in line with an un-sponsored, recently published report by Thompson Reuters on waste in the health care industry. NPR reported on this topic recently as a part of their on-going and extensive coverage of health care reform.
Clearly, services and tools that help physicians — particularly those in smaller practices — to avoid these cost and time sinks will help make a difference in their businesses and in the time they can devote to serving their patients. Our Referral Management service is aimed at reducing the time and cost burden of insurance plan interaction every day.
