Low-value healthcare services spending remains high

They're called “low-value” healthcare services: Hormone tests, imaging for back pain or headaches. They don't cost all that much, but they don't deliver much either. They also make delivering care more costly.

That's the conclusion of researchers at the RAND Corp. and the University of Southern California (USC). They studied nearly 1.5 million commercial insurance claims. Among that relatively small population, they discovered that spending on 28 low-value healthcare services totaled $32.8 million in 2013. That was roughly $22 per person annually, and accounted for one-half of one percent of that group's total healthcare spend.

Altogether, 7.8 percent of the population studied received a low-value healthcare service. The most money was spent on spinal injections for lower back pain at $12.1 million, followed by imaging for headaches at $3.6 million and imaging for lower back pain at $3.1 million. The results were published as a research letter in the most recent edition of JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Our findings add evidence to the notion that reducing overuse of medical procedures could improve quality while reducing spending,” Rachel Reid, M.D., lead author of the study and a RAND scientist, said in a statement.

A study released earlier this year by America's Health Insurance Plans concluded that spending for unnecessary diagnostic services has decreased in recent years, although it still remains high among those with employer-based healthcare coverage. Aetna Chairman Mark T. Bertolini recently proposed that health plans focus more on preventive care, which may reduce wasteful spending down the line.

There was also a correlation between cost-sharing and the likelihood of utilizing low-value services. Patients enrolled in consumer-directed health plans were less likely to use low-value services.

“Disparities in healthcare cut two ways--it may cause poor access to high-value care among vulnerable patients and overuse of low-value care among more-advantaged groups. Both need further attention,” Neeraj Sood, senior author of the study and professor at the Price School at USC, said in the announcement.