The United States is home to some of the best and worst care. The US Healthcare Problems list is the product of GoInvo’s efforts to understand why these gaps exist and how they impact us. By drawing attention to the most prominent problems faced in our healthcare system, we can start to envision how it may be redesigned.
GoInvo has spent the last two months researching and breaking down these problems. The result is a list ranked based on several quantitative indicators, such as number of deaths, number of American people impacted, dollars spent or lost, and number of related problems. The interconnected nature of the US healthcare system makes it extremely challenging to separate these problems. GoInvo has coupled analytical skills and interest in health policy to bring to light this complex web of menacing realities. Unsurprisingly, all problems can be attributed to the fee-for-service system in some way.
GoInvo encourages you to be appalled by these statistics... and then do something about it.
The United States spends more on healthcare in terms of %GDP than any other country — yet has the lowest life expectancy, highest suicide rates, highest chronic disease burden and highest obesity rate out of all countries in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
328M People Impacted - $3.8T Spending
471K lives have been lost, 1.7T US government dollars have been spent, $3-4T in US GDP is projected to be lost over the next 2 years, and the US unemployment rate is almost double what it was in 2019, with one-third of the total unemployed now categorized as long-term.
471K Deaths - 328M People Impacted - $1.7T Spending
900,000 people die each year due to the top 5 leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, and unintentional injuries. Several deaths are driven by health disparities defined by social, economic, and environmental disadvantages. However, 20-40% of these deaths can be avoided by changes in personal behavior, such as eating healthy, exercising, and stopping smoking.
900K Deaths - 360K People Impacted -
Behind heart disease and cancer (and COVID-19 if we're counting). These errors include patient misdiagnosis, incorrect prescription of a drug or procedure, and hospital based infections. Most people will be subject to at least one diagnostic error during their lifetime. These errors often go unreported.
250K Deaths - 328M People Impacted - $750B Spending
25% of healthcare spending is wasted on failure of care delivery, failure of care coordination, over-treatment or low-value care, pricing failure, fraud and abuse, and administrative complexity.
328M People Impacted - $935B Spending
Based on your insurance plan and health care facility, the price of an intervention can vary by as much as 65%. This is because the rate for every service is negotiated between payers and providers. Medicare prices are closest to the actual costs of care.
328M People Impacted - $235B Spending
This leads to both health and economic impact. When preventive care is not prioritized, patients get sicker, end up having to pay more for their care, and in a lot of cases, die. Economic productivity decreases when patients need to take time off of work to address preventable illness.
328M People Impacted - $260B Spending
Most patients and physicians don't know the price of the care they are receiving or delivering. Healthcare is the only market where buyers pay for services they don't know the price of, and receive a surprise bill weeks later.
328M People Impacted - $507B Spending
They spend more time with EHRs than with their patients. The average physician visit is about 8 minutes long. Administrative tasks, such as computer data entry and negotiating with insurance companies, take time away from physicians doing their actual job - providing care.
328M People Impacted - $266B Spending
In 2018 there were 48,000 deaths due to suicide, with 1.4 million attempts. When a person dies by suicide, the loss is felt by many, causing ripple effects of grief and trauma.
48K Deaths - 328M People Impacted -
The cost of care is typically unknown to physicians who are taught to order whatever they believe the patient needs regardless of the price tag.
328M People Impacted -
Although over 90% of care facilities have adopted EHRs, data still fails to be standardized across systems. This makes it difficult for physicians to have a holistic view of patient health and for patients to move their care to other facilities. Lack of standardization may result in duplicate services which are a major source of unnecessary costs.
328M People Impacted - $30B Spending
Deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, out-of-pocket limits, out-of-network care are all just fancy words for 'I really have no clue what my insurance covers'.
298M People Impacted -
The Americans who are covered by employer-provided or government health insurance are still under-insured. This means that their insurance doesn’t adequately cover the costs of health care for them, and they incur several out of pocket expenses. Employers picking the right insurance plan for their employees requires an understanding of the complex offerings and anticipation of healthcare needs for the coming year. This is extremely challenging to do, even for experts in the healthcare field.
298M People Impacted -
Patients don't have direct insight into how their provider is managing their care. This can lead to healthcare paternalism, where providers make care decisions that they believe are in the best interest of the patient, and the patient has little to no transparency on their entire health picture. This also means that data lives within the healthcare system rather than with the people who created it in the first place. Technically patients do own their data but they are unable to easily access it.
328M People Impacted -
With the increase in digitization of healthcare data, ranging from credit card details to patient diagnoses, data breaches are frequent.
328M People Impacted - $6.2B Spending
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. 40 million US adults smoke cigarettes, and 4.7 million middle and high school students use at least one tobacco product, including e-cigarettes. Nearly half a million Americans die prematurely each year due to smoking or secondhand smoke. 16 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking. The United States spends nearly $170 billion each year to treat smoking-related disease in adults.
500K Deaths - 44.7M People Impacted - $170B Spending
The US is the only country where healthcare is tied so closely to employment. Approximately 49% of Americans receive coverage through their employer, leading to issues such as job lock, inequity, and fragmentation of healthcare finance. This system was heavily implemented during the labor shortage and wage freeze in World War II to attract employees. It's remained the same ever since.
156M People Impacted - $260B Spending
During the pandemic, about 40% of adults in the U.S. have reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, up from 10% of adults who reported these symptoms from January to June 2019. Adults are also reporting negative impacts on their mental health and well-being, such as difficulty sleeping (36%) or eating (32%), increases in alcohol consumption or substance use (12%), and worsening chronic conditions (12%).
84M People Impacted -
Almost 25% of Americans delay or stop medical treatment due to the associated high costs. In many cases, this leads to death.
45K Deaths - 82M People Impacted -
42.4% of U.S. adults have obesity. Obesity-related conditions include some of the leading causes of preventable death, including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. The medical costs for people who have obesity were approximately $1,429 higher than those of normal weight in 2008.
88M People Impacted - $147B Spending
Higher deductibles are raising the share that patients pay for their own care. This means lower monthly payments with an increased risk of large medical bills you can't afford for emergency care. High deductibles work fine for those who are generally healthy, but are unattractive to those in poorer health. Doctor office visits and preventive care screenings have seen reductions as patients pay more for care directly out of their own pocket.
156M People Impacted -
20% of Americans don't receive required mental health services. Often they can't afford it or don't know how to seek help because it's treated completely separately from physical health. The most serious cases are seen among adults who are uninsured and living in poverty.
48K Deaths - 66M People Impacted - $225B Spending
Half of the population regularly takes prescription drugs, 25% of which struggle to afford them. With drug patents driving a lack of competition in the pharmaceutical market, companies raise the prices of drugs arbitrarily.
40M People Impacted - $335B Spending
One third of US adults report that they get less than the recommended amount of sleep (7 hours per 24-hour period). Not getting enough sleep may lead to many chronic diseases and conditions and can lead to motor vehicle crashes and mistakes at work, which contribute to injury and disability each year. Individuals who sleep fewer than six hours a night on average have a 13 per cent higher mortality risk than people who sleep at least seven hours. $411 billion in GDP is lost each year due to lack of sleep.
70M People Impacted - $411B Spending
Personal health literacy, as defined by Healthy People 2030, is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others. Adults with low health literacy experience 4 times higher health costs, 6% more hospital visits, and 2-day longer hospital stays.
118M People Impacted - $226B Spending
The poorer you are, the more you may delay seeking care. The later you seek care, the sicker you get. The sicker you get, the more services you may require. The more services you require, the more you pay. The base rate of hospitalization is multiplied by several factors that are meant to reflect how difficult it was to care for the patient.
40M People Impacted -
An estimated 95,000 people die from alcohol-related causes annually. In 2010, alcohol misuse cost the United States $249.0 billion, with three-quarters related to binge drinking. Approximately 14.1 million adults and 400,000 youth have alcohol use disorder (AUD).
95K Deaths - 14.5M People Impacted - $249B Spending
Physician burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of reduced accomplishment in day-to-day work. There is a strong relationship between burnout and errors, where burnout leads to errors and more errors exacerbate burnout. A physician suffering from burnout is less productive and likely to quit practicing, driving up costs associated with recruiting a new physician.
120K Deaths - 420K People Impacted - $4.6B Spending
Over 81,000 drug overdose deaths were recorded in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest number ever recorded in a 12-month period. These numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic.
81K Deaths -
Residents in the poorest neighborhoods are in worse health and live 10 years shorter than those in the most affluent areas. This is due to inequitable access to healthcare facilities and insurance.
40M People Impacted -
The number of Americans facing limited or uncertain access to sufficient, nutritious food for a healthy life have skyrocketed due to COVID-19. Food insecurity disproportionately affects low-income Americans and communities of color who are already at higher risk for preventable chronic diseases and negative health and economic outcomes associated with COVID-19.
54M People Impacted -
74% of the 30 million don't have health insurance because they can't afford it. Uninsured adults have worse health outcomes, higher rates of mortality and premature death, inadequate access to preventive services, and expensive medical bills.
45K Deaths - 30M People Impacted -
The fee-for-service system rewards action instead of health outcomes. Physicians over-treat patients to increase their bottom line.
$101B Spending
Rural patients lack convenient access to healthcare facilities and comprehensive insurance coverage. If medical services are covered, the coverage is insufficient. These factors contribute to serious health problems in rural areas.
60M People Impacted -
This includes billing for services not provided, falsifying credentials, billing for duplicate services, and recommending services where they hold financial incentive.
$68B Spending
The chronically ill face challenges finding and maintaining a job that can support their expenses. For this reason, they are likely to wind up in poverty.
40M People Impacted -
Defensive spending includes over-testing and over-treating patients, as well as avoiding high-risk patients in order to decrease risk of malpractice law suits.
$50B Spending
We’ve highlighted the top problems related to healthcare in the US. We’d like to acknowledge that some of the problems you may expect are not present; this may be due to ongoing research by our team or inconclusive data. Racial inequities in healthcare and medical bill errors are two prominent issues that are at the top of our radar. Where data is available, we’ve listed quantitative metrics supporting the severity of each problem. We encourage you to explore the list and references, and send your feedback on this draft to hello@goinvo.com.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
GoInvo is a healthcare design company that crafts innovative digital and physical solutions. Our deep expertise in Health IT, Genomics, and Open Source health has delivered results for the National Institute of Health, Walgreens, Mount Sinai and Partners Healthcare.
The US Healthcare Problems list began as a google spreadsheet research effort, with sources including “The Long Fix” by Vivian Lee, CDC, and CMS. Our team aimed to pool relevant quantitative and anecdotal information for each outlined problem, making it possible to start to prioritize what needs addressing. Ideally, the move away from a fee-for-service system and towards a value-based approach would alleviate some of this burden.
Fee-for-service: payment is dependent on the quantity of care
Value-based: payment is dependent on the quality of care
The initial ranking is based on the quantitative data as well as the prevalence of the problem as explained in research.
The list has been expanded to include the top 40 US healthcare problems. We have updated the ranking algorithm to consider a weighted average of each of the quantitative metrics.
=0.25*(deaths/max(deaths))+0.25*(spending/max(spending))+0.25*(peopleimpacted/max(peopleimpacted))+0.25*(relatedprobs/max(relatedprobs))
The equal (0.25) weighting may be adjusted over time with supporting literature.
Stay tuned for V03 where we will include a visual representation of the connectedness of these problems, and showcase the current status of each problem being addressed.
Brad Dumke
Megan Janas
Susan Woods, MD