Class Notes Overview: Study Healthcare's High Costs

Class Notesoverviewlet Us Study Healthcares High Costs And Waste As a

Overview Let us study healthcare’s high costs and waste as an area with opportunities for improvement because high costs and waste are serious problems for the US. A study by Arizona State University in November 2020, found that between $600 billion to more than $1.9 trillion was wasted every year, or between $1,800 and $5,700 per person, per year. Any opportunity for improvement will be beneficial to the US. Healthcare spending is high in the US compared with other developed countries because of the complexity of administration expenses, high physician salaries, and the costs of pharmaceuticals. Wastes are associated with – clinical inefficiencies, missed prevention opportunities, overuse, administrative waste, excessive prices, and fraud and abuse.

For the purpose of this assignment, here are the general guidelines: 1. Review the data from the State of New York open-source data portal. 2. Think about a US healthcare problem area: high cost and waste at a conceptual level only and you are not required to access the data file to do any data analytics. 3. Describe the high cost and waste problem in the US healthcare system. 4. Describe the data you found on the state’s portal and how you plan to address the challenges for improvement.

Specific hints for Q: To select a data set from the NY state open data portal that would help you address the problem area of high costs and waste in the US healthcare system, you could start browsing through categories such as "Hospital Data," "Healthcare Costs," "Healthcare Quality," and "Population Health." Within these, look for data sets related to healthcare costs and waste, such as hospital charges, claims data, or utilization data.

Step 1: List and describe two data sets that could augment or improve the analysis and explain why you chose them. Provide a snipping of these data sets to demonstrate your choice. Justify your choice by considering factors such as coverage of health insurance types, regional differences, or hospital stay durations correlated with social determinants like poverty or obesity.

Step 2: Review the data documentation for the selected data sets to identify what medical terminology systems are used, such as SNOMED CT, ICD-10, or CPT codes. If no standardized codes are present, find at least two concepts that could have been captured using standard codes and select alternative data sets that do use such coding, providing snapshots to illustrate. Recognizing these terminologies is crucial for effective communication and analysis.

Step 3: Consider how standardized codes assist analysis by linking data across sources, enabling comparisons across patients and providers, tracking trends, and evaluating treatment effectiveness. Proper coding enhances data quality, comparability, and accuracy, supporting informed policy decisions, intervention assessments, and system efficiency improvements.

Paper For Above instruction

The challenge of high costs and waste within the US healthcare system remains a critical concern, with estimates indicating that annual waste ranges from $600 billion to over $1.9 trillion. This financial drain hampers the system's sustainability and equitable access. To tackle this issue, examining regional and systemic variations through data analysis can illuminate underlying inefficiencies. The New York State open-source data portal provides an invaluable resource for such investigations, offering datasets related to hospital charges, healthcare utilization, and patient demographics, which can substantially augment understanding and guide systemic improvements.

Two potential datasets from the NY State portal include the "Hospital Cost and Charges Data" and "Healthcare Utilization and Spending Data." The first dataset encompasses detailed hospital billing charges, payer information, and patient demographics, which is essential for identifying cost drivers and disparities. For instance, analyzing this data can reveal variations in hospitalization costs across counties, helping pinpoint regions with excessive spending or inefficiencies. An excerpt from this dataset shows charges categorized by service type, payer, and severity level, providing granular insights into cost structures. This information can help policymakers and stakeholders target specific areas for cost containment and waste reduction.

The second dataset, "Healthcare Utilization and Spending Data," includes metrics on outpatient visits, hospitalization rates, and medication use across different populations and regions. This data allows for evaluating patterns of overuse or underuse of services and identifying populations with high hospitalization rates that may benefit from preventive interventions. For example, a snippet showing high hospitalization rates in impoverished counties linked with high obesity rates emphasizes the potential for targeted preventive strategies. Additionally, understanding utilization patterns can inform resource allocation and improve efficiency.

In terms of medical terminology, these datasets utilize coding systems such as ICD-10 for diagnosis classification and CPT codes for procedures, facilitating standardized communication across healthcare settings. Recognizing these systems enables the integration of datasets from various sources, allowing for comprehensive analyses that can track patient outcomes and service utilization over time. For example, linking ICD-10 diagnosis codes with utilization data can help identify the most common preventable hospitalizations, such as those related to diabetes or hypertension, which contribute significantly to wasteful spending.

Employing standardized coding systems enhances analysis by allowing researchers to aggregate data accurately, compare regions or hospitals, and evaluate trends longitudinally. This standardization improves data quality, making findings more reliable and actionable. Moreover, linkage across datasets can reveal correlations between social determinants like poverty or obesity and healthcare costs, offering a richer understanding of the systemic issues at play. Ultimately, leveraging these codes supports the development of targeted policies aimed at reducing waste, improving care quality, and decreasing unnecessary costs, thus addressing the overarching problem of high healthcare expenditure and inefficiency in the US system.

References

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