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Get rid of onerous documentation requirements. There - you cut 10%-20% of hospital administration costs, and you haven't changed how much doctors are being paid per hour, but you have increased their productivity, so they can see more patients for the same salary.

Find me a payer who will agree to it and I'll show you the solution to healthcare bloat.

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The documentation requirements did not come out of thin air. Some docs during the 80s/90s/00s made out extremely well. One of the infamous ones is ortho surgeons hitting everyone with dubious back surgeries since it was all paid for by Medicare even though there was little evidence back surgeries worked.

A lot of the doctors/dentists/pharmacists made out very well in previous decades, resulting in the healthcare expenditures becoming a political flashpoint, culminating in ACA, and thus the pendulum starts swinging the other way. Sucks for newer generation of doctors.

theres still billions in fraud, waste, and abuse. I don't think the increased documentatiom addressed the problem you describe and created many new problems of its own.

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