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Cost savings through preventative medicine

2013-02-19 15:59:23.083175+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Cost savings associated with improving appropriate and reducing inappropriate preventive care: cost-consequences analysis, Hogg, Baskerville & Lemelin. In southern Ontario, with 90,283 patients:

The total cost of the intervention over 12 months was $238,388 and the cost of increasing the delivery of appropriate care was $192,912 for a total cost of $431,300. The savings from reduction in inappropriate testing were $148,568 and from avoiding treatment costs as a result of appropriate testing were $455,464 for a total savings of $604,032. On a yearly basis the net cost saving to the government is $191,733 per year (2003 $Can) equating to $3,687 per physician or $63,911 per facilitator, an estimated return on intervention investment and delivery of appropriate preventive care of 40%.

Via a comment on JWZ: Blimpocalypse Continues. Terror Blimps: STAND DOWN., which pointed out that:

So how about this: converting to single payer health care in the US would save enough (e.g., by catching cancers at early outpatient-treatable stages instead of in emergency rooms at later stages requiring expensive treatment and long-term hospitalization) to extract all 10 petagrams of carbon output from seawater at $50/tonne?

(that last link is PDF)

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comments in descending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2013-02-19 23:56:32.91731+00 by: Dan Lyke

I think insurance companies haven't jumped on it because the people this would most save us from aren't insurance customers. So there's a good chance that the Affordable Care Act will get some of these people on the rolls through the coverage mandate.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-02-19 23:21:45.342693+00 by: TheSHAD0W

I find it difficult to believe that insurance companies wouldn't have jumped on that same level of potential savings themselves. I suspect the numbers are wrong somewhere. (Either that, or the "single payer" is going to mandate behavior the insurance companies weren't allowed to.)