Dive Brief:
- 19.7 million patients annually are referred to a specialist that is inappropriate for his or her condition, according to the 2014 Kyruus Physician Referral Survey. 100 specialists across 11 specialties were surveyed.
- 75% of specialists have received at least one "clinically inappropriate" referral in the last year. Around 8% of all referrals are "clinically inappropriate," adding up to an average of 42 wrongly-matched patients per specialist per year for a total of 19.7 million in the US at large.
- The vast majority of physicians—87%—believe that the inappropriate referrals are a direct result of the dearth of reliable information about other specialists. 15% believe that they are the result of a system that relies too heavily on the personal relationships between physicians rather than objective clinical assessments.
Dive Insight:
What is the cost of all these misdirected referrals? In dollars and cents, the 63% of patients who are re-referred to the correct physician incur almost $2 billion in costs as a result of lost wages and unnecessary co-pays. The remaining 37% are treated by the wrong physician, which has the potential to put the patient at risk of receiving lower-quality care.