Healthcare is Over 50 Percent Waste and Fraud Says Report

According to a 2008 report by Pricewaterhouse Cooper’s Health Research Institute, wasteful spending accounts for $1.2 trillion of the $2.2 trillion spent on health care in the United States. 

Holtzman, a consumer advocate with Medical Billing Advocates of America, looks at medical bills for a living. Among the excessive charges she’s seen: A patient in Florida was billed $140 dollars for one Tylenol pill; a patient in South Carolina was billed $1,000 for a tooth brush; a patient in Georgia was billed more than $4,000 for 41 bags of IV saline solution when she went to the emergency room for a two-hour visit and used just one bag.

In the Georgia example, Holtzman says, the patient’s insurance company paid the entire claim.

“Usually any kind of bill that’s under $100,000, they don’t look at the details. And that’s where something like that can be paid in error,” she said.

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