Reforming the U.S. healthcare system is a piece of cake, a Harvard economist told a civic group in Cleveland: Just fire all the mid-level managers.
Prof. David Cutler promised his speech to healthcare industry providers at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens yesterday was meant to be provocative and he certainly delivered, according to MedCity News.
Most people would shell out for accessible, affordable healthcare, he said. And the key to affordability lies in removing inefficiencies and improving coordination.
Cutler claimed that the most common job in healthcare is office support. Get rid of the dead weight, he said, and most health systems improve efficiency by 25 percent and cut costs by 10 percent.
Better care coordination could also yield drastic improvements, Cutler said — namely, reducing the number of ER trips that escalate into unnecessary inpatient stays and making sure people take their medicines as prescribed so they don’t wind up in the hospital.
“We’re wasting at least a third of our medical resources” on inefficiencies, Cutler said, according to the website.
But, as always, the devil’s in the details.
“I don’t know how to make this happen legislatively,” Cutler said, according to MedCity News: The feds should pay for everyone’s coverage, with local providers cutting costs and improving efficiency.
And what about all those newly unemployed middle managers Cutler’s proposal would create?
Harvard economist David Cutler’s healthcare prescription:
- Promulgate a list of best practices. Comparative effectiveness research, anyone?
- Redo reimbursement. Reward good outcomes rather than number of procedures.
- Middle management massacre. Make provider organizations flatter and get rid of all that pesky paper. Hello, EHRs!