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2-3% error is too high, this is something we _should_ be scrutinizing, and healthcare _should_ be more expensive if the reason it's expensive is that we're pouring more resources into it to get diminishing returns on reducing mistakes.

Costly healthcare due to scrutiny is not the problem with healthcare in the US. The problem is drug monopolies, medical (mal)practice without a license by insurance companies, and the lack of taxpayer funded healthcare-as-a-right.

We need to create an environment where someone like Terblanche feels comfortable advocating for himself without feeling like he's being a burden on the ER, and physicians don't feel like they're wasting time by investigating seemingly trivial cases. Such a situation exists because we are not pouring enough money into healthcare in this country.



It feels high to me because most ER cases should be obvious i.e. heart attacks, car accidents and strokes etc. So if say 10% of cases are non standard then 2% overall is 20% off that.


Not only is the case mix much broader than you imagine but even the three things you listed all have plenty of nuance at the individual case level.


We don't have an anti-heart attack pill. Medicine hasn't developed the post-car-accident protocol. Strokes vary so much in type that they can go unrecognized by competent doctors for years.


The ER functions as primary care for a large percentage of the population. They see far far more than the kinds of thing a rational person with health insurance thinks of when they think about medical problems they’d go to the ER for.


https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10121120/

The study performed by AHRQ used incorrect methodologies and datasets to extrapolate its findings.

The ED is far more accurate with a much lower error rate than the study found.


> 2-3% error is too high, this is something we _should_ be scrutinizing, and healthcare _should_ be more expensive if the reason it's expensive is that we're pouring more resources into it to get diminishing returns on reducing mistakes

There will be rapid diminishing returns. It may cost 5x to get to 1-2%. Maybe 10x.




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