US Doctors Spend More Time Dealing With Insurers.

US Doctors Spend More Time Dealing With Insurers.
In continuing coverage, Pauline W. Chen, MD, writes in the New York Times (8/26, Subscription Publication) "Well" blog that in a study published in the August issue of Health Affairs, "researchers asked hundreds of physicians and administrators in private practices across the United States and Canada how much time they spent each day with insurers and other third-party payers." Notably, US physicians spent significantly more time than their Canadian peers "dealing with multiple health plans: more than $80,000 per year per physician, or roughly four times as much as their northern counterparts. And their offices spent as many as 21 hours per week with payers, nearly 10 times as much as the Canadian offices." Chen points out how all this time spent dealing with insurers "inevitably gets in the way of patient care."