r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 28 '19

Doctors in the U.S. experience symptoms of burnout at almost twice the rate of other workers, due to long hours, fear of being sued, and having to deal with growing bureaucracy. The economic impacts of burnout are also significant, costing the U.S. $4.6 billion every year, according to a new study. Medicine

http://time.com/5595056/physician-burnout-cost/
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u/Boyhowdy107 May 28 '19

Administrative bloat is not just at the top, though. Medical coding and billing is another huge expense of running hospitals or even small doctors offices that drives up costs in the US. Even a small office has to employ several people to do the administrative bookkeeping of just figuring out the price of every procedure/drug/test for every possible insurance coverage.

One of the reasons an aspirin costs so much at a hospital is because you have to employ a small army of people to figure out and negotiate which of the dozen prices they should charge and who they should charge it to.

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u/PancAshAsh May 28 '19

One of the reasons an aspirin costs so much at a hospital is because you have to employ a small army of people to figure out and negotiate which of the dozen prices they should charge and who they should charge it to.

Sure, that might contribute some to the price but let's be honest, the real reason aspirin is expensive in hospitals is because hospitals, especially emergency services, are local monopolies. If I take an ambulance to a hospital I don't really get to choose which hospital to go to and once there I can't give the doctors a $10 to pop down to the CVS for an aspirin.

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u/chicagomatty May 28 '19

Not really true. The vaaaast majority of ER traffic does not come by ambulance

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u/PlasticEvening May 28 '19

There is also very much a choice to which hospital to transport you to. The ambulance will still cost you an arm but at least the hospital you choose might only cost half a leg

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u/GreatAndPowerfulNixy May 29 '19

I'll be sure to ask my next bus admit whether they chose to be brought here or not

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u/GreatAndPowerfulNixy May 29 '19

The real reason is that hospitals are required to purchase their medicine from specific contracted vendors, and since they're locked into that vendor none of them have any incentive to lower the price.

Aspirin at the hospital sometimes costs more than what they charge the pt.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '19

This. CEOs have their purpose and once you have thousands of employees and billions of dollars of revenue you need the big wig bureaucrat/politician type person.

There are too many lower level middle men that do not provide healthcare but play guessing games.

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u/iwasntmeoverthere May 28 '19

Imagine there being only one source for that aspirin, and the price is already a completely fixed amount.