The Challenge of Reducing Unnecessary Medical Care

Despite efforts to reduce unnecessary medical care, the U.S. healthcare system continues to spend significant amounts of money on treatments and tests that provide little benefit and may even harm patients. In Colorado alone, $134 million was spent on low-value care last year, with prescriptions for opiates, multiple antipsychotics, and screenings for vitamin D deficiency being the top low-value items. The structure of the healthcare system, which rewards doctors for providing more care rather than the right care, makes it difficult to address this issue. Financial incentives, patient expectations, and the culture of "more is better" contribute to the challenge of reducing unnecessary care. Efforts to align financial incentives and educate patients have shown some success in reducing low-value care, but more work is needed to overcome these barriers.