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Show Me the Money!
If you want to see some real change, just dangle a monetary reward in front of the person. That’s what worked to get hospital healthcare costs lowered in one study.
Arizona State University researchers set up a five-year study where they compared hospitals that implemented a “gainsharing” program versus those that didn’t. The gainsharing program offered doctors money in reward for finding ways to reduce hospital spending without compromising quality or patients’ access to care. The hospitals that used the gainsharing program approach lowered hospital costs by about $315 per patient.
That means the same quality for you in treatment for your health diagnosis, with less damage to your health insurance bill.
Do you think this is a good idea? What are some other ways hospitals could cut costs without negative effects to patient care? [HealthDay]
I read that for every new drug, pharmaceutical companies spend 40 percent of the cost not on research and development, but on marketing their drug.
So if I pay $100 for a bottle of pills, I'm paying $40 for Merck or Pfizer to sell them to me.
How about some FDA regulations that limit drug advertising? Think of all the money that patients wouldn't have to pay for drugs and all the wasted cash that could go toward researching more and better drugs.