There is no question that health care costs are an important subject that is being discussed on national scale. Americans have watched as health care costs have increased over the last decade. Some people are paying thousands of dollars more than they have in the past; this equates to nearly $3 trillion across the nation (Herman, 2014).There are a number of different key drivers that can have serious impacts on the overall health care system and the people who need it. Two of the key drivers that are contributing to high health care cost are, first and foremost it is the ever-climbing physician, facility and drug costs and the second is the administrative expenses via insurance and billing processes.
Just recently media covered the huge costs that the manufacturers of the "Epi-pen. They were being criticized for the huge amount of money being charged for the pen, for no particular reason. They are not that costly to produce. This overpricing of everything is epidemic in the health care field. Prescriptions priced in the thousands for only a month supply and tests and treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars, that most people cannot afford. Administrative expenses also waste billions of dollars due to sending out excessive amounts of forms, insurance billing and many other paper materials (Herman, 2014).
There are a number of ways that the key drivers of ever-increasing health care costs can be eliminated or, at least, reduced. In the case of unnecessary administrative expenses it is to be more dependent on modern technologies. It is much more cost effective to send emails and share information digitally (Cutler, Wikler and Basch, 2012). In order to change the high costs found throughout the health care industry, be it the medical facility, the doctors who treat patients there or the pharmaceutical companies, then cost restrictions must be introduced to control and prevent these industries from over-charging. Medications do not necessarily cost much to produce and yet people are paying multiple times what they cost to produce, which means the bulk is all-profit (The Official U.S. Government Site for Medicare, 2017). Medicine is not supposed to me a lucrative business, but that is what it has become and this needs to be changed via policy and new practices. In the meantime, the average patient should invest in independent prescription programs that can offset the high costs until more permanent approaches can be applied.
In the end, these are not the only two key drivers that contribute to the high health care costs. They do, however, represent so much of the problem with the health care costs; it is the freedom of drug companies and health care providers to price their products and service as they see fit that must be scrutinized. This includes any and all appointments, tests, treatments and all of the prescription medications developed and prescribed. Making changes in these two areas would go a long way to aiding in ending high health care costs in the United States.
REFERENCES
Cutler, D., Wikler, E. and Basch, P. (2012). Reducing administrative costs and improving the
health care system. The New England Journal of Medicine. 367. 1875-1878.
Herman, B. (2014). 9 drivers of high health care costs in the u.s. Becker’s Hospital Review. 1.
Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/9-drivers-of-high-healthcare-costs-in-the-u-s.html
The Official U.S. Government Site for Medicare. (2017). 6 ways to lower your coverage gap
costs. Medicare.gov. 1. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from https://www.medicare.gov/part-d/costs/coverage-gap/ways-to-lower-drug-costs.html
