Why Is There So Much Less Paperwork In Canadian Health Care?
If you ask internists and their patients what makes them bonkers about the U.S. health care system, paperwork will top the list. Many will point to the federal government as the culprit, citing the many forms, RAC audits, pre-and post-payment reviews, documentation and coding guidelines, HIPAA privacy rules, quality measurement and reporting, Part D drug formularies, and HIT meaningful use requirements imposed by Medicare and other federal programs. (Some put more of the blame on private insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.)
But if paperwork is associated with the degree of government involvement in health care, then Canada–a single payer system–should have more of it than the United States, right? Think again.
A new Health Affairs survey of U.S. physicians and practice administrators found that U.S. physicians spend Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
