Barriers to Accessing Health Care
Americans report barriers to accessing health care one-fifth of the time, ranging from 3 percent of people who say they were unable to get or had to delay getting a prescription medication to 60 percent saying their usual provider did not have office hours on nights or weekends.
Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Better Advice Needed
Overall, in 2007, 59.2% of adults with obesity had ever received advice from a health provider to exercise more.
Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Getting in to See the Doctor
Only one in four Americans and Canadians with chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and asthma, was able to get an appointment to see a doctor on the same day the last time they were sick.
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
The Cost of Preventable Readmissions
Preventable hospital readmissions cost Medicare alone more than $17 billion in 2004.
Source: The New England Journal of Medicine
Lacking Information
Most doctors lack information about the quality of care they or their colleagues provide. Only one in five gets data about the care their patients received, such as recommended tests, screenings and checkups.
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Finding the Best Quality
Choosing the right doctor or hospital is one of the most important health care decisions consumers will ever make, yet they have little information to guide the decision. Only 12 percent of Americans surveyed in 2008 said they had seen information about the quality of care doctors provide, and only 6 percent said they used the information to make a decision.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Perverse Incentives
Our current reimbursement system can create perverse outcomes. There are 24 million Americans with diabetes. Nationally, many insurers will not pay $150 per visit for a patient with diabetes to have routine preventive-care visits with a podiatrist. However, nearly all insurers will pay $30,000 for the foot amputation that is all too common in advanced cases of diabetes.
Source: The New York Times
Mayo Clinic Savings
If the entire U.S. health care system treated chronically ill patients the way the prestigious Mayo Clinic does, Medicare could have saved $50 billion in 2001-2005.
Source: Dartmouth Atlas
Geographic Variation
Across the United States, there are variations in the way medicine is practiced, which affect both the quality and quantity of the health care patients receive.
Source: Dartmouth Atlas
Worse Care for Minorities
Racial and ethnic minorities suffer from worse health and receive lower-quality care than whites, regardless of where they live, their income or their health insurance coverage.
Source: Institute of Medicine
Hospital-Acquired Infections
Health care-associated infections in hospitals account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year.
Source: Public Health Reports
Preventable Errors
Between 44,000 and 98,000 people die annually from preventable errors, more than from motor-vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
Source: Institute of Medicine
Preventable Deaths
As many as 91,000 Americans die each year because they don't receive the right evidence-based care for such chronic conditions as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.
Source: National Committee for Quality Assurance
Recommended Care, Only Half the Time
It's a coin flip whether you'll get the right care for what's wrong with you. It only happens about half the time. Children receive less than half (46.5 percent) of recommended care. Adult patients receive only half (55 percent) of recommended care.
Source: The New England Journal of Medicine
Wasted Care
Thirty percent of the care we deliver--nearly $700 billion a year--may go for tests, procedures, doctor visits, hospital stays and other services that may not improve people's health.
Source: Congressional testimony