Physician Practices' Interactions With Plans Cost $31 Billion Annually

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Medical Practice Management
Article Date: 20 May 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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As policymakers consider ways to cut health costs as a part of health reform, a new national survey of physician practices finds that physicians on average are spending the equivalent of three work weeks annually on administrative tasks required by health plans. According to the study published May 14 on the Health Affairs Web site by Lawrence P. Casalino of Weill Cornell Medical College and colleagues, physician practices report that overall the costs of interacting with insurance plans is $31 billion annually and 6.9 percent of all U.S. expenditures for physician and clinical services.

A separate study, also published May 14 on the Health Affairs site, provides an in-depth look at the billing and insurance-related activities performed at a large multisite, multispecialty group practice in California to get paid for clinical services. The study found that clinicians spent more than 35 minutes per day performing billing and insurance-related tasks and that these activities also required the equivalent of 0.67 non-clinical full-time staff per full-time physician at an annual cost of $85,276 per physician, representing 10 percent of operating revenue.

Source
Health Affairs