Following the release of the white paper “Where Can $700 Billion in Waste Be Cut Annually From the U.S. Healthcare System?”, Thomson Reuters and the authors heard from many readers who wondered how much of the waste can be reasonably eliminated in the short term and in a longer time frame. Others asked about the effect of health reform on the identified six categories of waste. In response, Thomson Reuters and the authors reviewed the literature, investigated our clients’ successful initiatives and estimated the possible impact of these initiatives if implemented at a national level. The result presented in this paper is a vision of one path for reducing wasteful spending in healthcare over the next five to ten years. Great effort was expended to provide a balanced and specifically apolitical viewpoint equally weighing the concerns of patients, providers, payers, and purchasers. The document proposes five successful strategies to mitigate the six categories of waste identified in the previous white paper. This pathway is submitted not as the solution but to contribute useful ideas to the ongoing dialogue over the best way to address this problem. It is hoped that this white paper would serve as a catalyst encouraging more debate and a call to action as our newly passed legislation requires creative and sophisticated implementation.

Full report: A Path to Eliminating $3.6 Trillion in Wasteful Healthcare Spending (PDF | 1MB)