The Affordable Care Act’s main goal is to insure the uninsured. But, one other goal: lower the cost of health care. Advances in data collection are giving us a clearer picture of who’s costing hospitals the most and why. Some say this creates new opportunities for savings. Reporter Lawrence Lanahan went to Columbia, Maryland, to see how this is playing out in our backyard.
More than four out of ten health care dollars are spent in hospitals. If you want to reduce spending, and therefore the overall cost of health care, that’s a good place to start looking for savings. And with just five percent of the population accounting for nearly half of all health care spending, another place to look is in the homes of the sickest people—what is sending them to the hospital? What could be changed that might keep them out?
Our series 'The Checkup: How Health Care Is Changing in Maryland' is made possible by grants from CareFirst BlueCross BlueSheild, the Baltimore Association of Health Underwriters, and HealthCare Access Maryland.