New RWJF and Health Affairs Brief on Waste in Health Care

A new Health Policy Brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examines waste in US health care. Estimates are that more than a third of annual US health spending may be wasteful. A September 2012 Institute of Medicine report estimated that $765 billion a year was wasted through provision of unnecessary services, inefficiently delivered services, excessive prices and administrative costs, and missed prevention opportunities and fraud and abuse.

This policy brief discusses these and other types of waste in health care, ideas for eliminating waste, and the considerable hurdles that must be overcome to do so. It is the companion to a July 2012 Health Policy Brief, "Eliminating Fraud and Abuse."

Read it here.