The cost of care is rising

50 of the most expensive medical procedures in the U.S.

We ran the numbers, and these are the 50 most expensive medical procedures in the U.S. impacting cost of care. Every procedure on this list costs at least four times more than the median American household savings.

Arcadia Insights: Brian Croegaert on the rising costs of care, and how data can help

When I started my career as a nurse in the ‘80s, I worked at an inner-city hospital in Milwaukee. There were practices that were 25% free to accommodate those who couldn’t get care anywhere else, we had a psychiatric facility, and our population ranged from healthy and wealthy to those suffering from homelessness and substance abuse. It was a place trying to pull together the diverse care needs for a very disparate group of folks. 

This was my first sense of the healthcare system as a community.

The AIDS epidemic forced us to identify and group high-risk patients for a disease we didn’t yet understand. There are many parallels to COVID. The problem? We didn’t have quick access to usable data.

You’d ask IT and they’d deliver a box of green bar reports. There was no way to sort the data, and outreach was manual. It was very clunky, but at least it was the beginning of a system to get sick patients the care they needed before it was too late.

Today, we’re still doing the same things: identifying who’s sick, making sure they get well, and then tracking them over time. The difference is we now do it with shorter timelines, more accuracy and efficiency, and more automated outreach. The technology has gotten better.

And yet the number of people with chronic illness grows, and costs go up. We published a data visualization a few years back, and in the time between cost of care has nearly doubled to $12,000 per patient. Chronically ill patients make up the majority of those costs.

Many of our customers are turning to value-based care as a solution. They’re taking on risk and working hard to keep costs low and outcomes high. They’re freeing up the space that would be used for chronic illnesses like congestive heart failure and diabetes to create new programs that improve their populations’ lives. Data is making it happen.

— Brian Croegaert , RN BSN, SVP, Value-Based Care Services at Arcadia

News you can use: Let’s put data to work to solve emerging challenges in healthcare

Value-based care reduced costs by $2,100 per patient. In a pilot program to evaluate value-based care models, Nemours Children’s Health System saw reduced cost of care in children suffering from asthma. From Harvard Business Review : in addition to cost savings, patients saw a 60% reduction of asthma-related ER visits and a 44% reduction in asthma-related hospital admissions.

90% of Medicare fee-for-service payments are tied to quality. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has hit this important milestone, there’s still a long way to go for value-based care. This road map from the University of Pennsylvania explores areas for opportunity in the next decade.

Total operating expenses for hospitals rose 11%. That’s bad news for a system that already operates on razor thin margins, which were down an additional 3.8% compared to pre-pandemic levels. According to the American Hospital Association , these increased costs are due to a combination of factors, from drug expenses to rising inflation.

Our latest insights on the cost of care

Moving to value-based care: From risky business to data-backed decisions

Every month, we get a pulse on the most important topics in healthcare and data. This month we discussed improving outcomes by taking on risk, plus the benefits of a value-based care model with Carrie Nave at Ascension . Subscribe to Vitals to hear about new episodes or watch recordings on-demand.

Value-Based Care Services, powered by Arcadia Analytics

Arcadia’s Value-Based Care Services team pulls together the insights you need to lower costs and improve outcomes. We take a fine-tooth comb to your database to understand utilization and identify process improvements for increased revenues, then put the plan into action. Your job? Focus on delivering quality care to your patients.

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