Practice interaction with insurers costs $21B-$31B per year

This certainly doesn’t surprise me! A recent study has found that medical practices spend between $21 billion  and $31 billion annually dealing with insurers - or more than $68,000 per physician per year.  The study -- "The Costs to Physician Practices of Interactions with Health Insurance Plans" -- found that physicians spend three hours per week - or 43 minutes on average per workday - interacting with health insurance plans.

The research found that primary care physicians spend more time on these interactions than medical or surgical specialists. Nursing staff spend nearly four hours per physician per day interacting with plans, while clerical staff spends 7.2 hours per day. Solo practitioners and their staffs spend up to 50 percent more time interacting with health plans than physicians in larger practices. Non-physicians' staff time did not vary significantly by specialty.  For more, see Healthcare Finance News.

This is just further evidence on why smaller medical practices need to consider a merger – an opportunity to decrease administrative time and costs.