Unnecessary Care – Healthcare Economist

How to reduce spending on unnecessary care (the answer is not what you think)

2017-10-09Jason Shafrin1 Comment

The way to solve this question is easy, right? The first step is to define what constitutes unnecessary care. Then identify the highest cost manifestations of unnecessary care. Then, create interventions that stop providers from providing this care. Simple, right? Maybe not according to a paper by Mafi et al. (2017). The authors appear to…

Overuse in Healthcare: 5 Examples

2009-05-18Jason ShafrinLeave a comment

23 percent of tympanostomy tubes placed for middle ear infection are inappropriate (Kleinman et al. 1994); 5–35 percent of adult asthma care are inappropriate (Starfield et al. 1994); 16 percent of hysterectomies are inappropriate (Bernstein et al. 1993); 9.4 percent of hospital admissions for pneumonia are considered inappropriate (Payne et al. 1995); and 20 percent…