WellPoint officials said they think the company's upfront investment in primary care could reduce its projected medical costs by as much as 20% by 2015 by improving overall patient health and reducing the need for costlier medical services.
They would be asked to switch from paper to electronic medical records, to organize with other doctors to reduce medical complications and unnecessary costs, to try to arrive at a package price for a child with asthma or a man with kidney stones.
However, the misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would actually reduce patient options and increase medical costs.
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It's an investment that will take the long overdue step of computerizing America's medical records, to reduce the duplication and waste that costs billions of health care dollars and the medical errors that every year cost thousands of lives.
While savings will vary depending on the type and plan design of insurance programs as well the demographics of the covered population, there is growing evidence that wellness programs drive employer medical costs down and reduce employee absenteeism for illness.
In addition to his work at Scripps, he is vice chairman at the West Wireless Health Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization dedicated to innovating, validating, and advocating for the use of technologies, including wireless medical devices, that aim to reduce health care costs by transforming medicine.
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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday that the health-care law "has successfully lowered costs, " citing its efforts to reduce medical errors and hospital readmissions.
As in many other aspects of health care, we could significantly reduce costs and improve quality by moving towards the medical practices adopted in the more efficient parts of the country.
Not only would it reduce tax savings for mortgages, charitable gifts, high medical costs, and the like, it would also curb tax breaks for owners of municipal bonds, workers who buy health insurance, and those who earn money overseas.
So if it's established that by working seriously on medical malpractice and tort reform that we can reduce some of those costs, I've said from the beginning of this debate I'd be willing to work on that.
The aim of comparative effectiveness is to reduce health care costs, an especially compelling goal for our government, the number one purchaser of medical treatments in America.
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For example, markups are added to expensive pieces of medical equipment, and there is little incentive for manufacturers or suppliers to find ways to reduce production costs, as would normally happen in other parts of the economy.
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