Malcolm Gladwell is well known for his book Outliers, about people who become extremely successful thanks to intense practice, good luck, and supportive situations that enable their early practice and skill development. If you have read his book, you probably have at least a little exposure to the idea that some people are unique and can have a surprising influence on the world. But one area you probably haven’t considered with the impact of outliers, unless you study healthcare economics, is in medical spending.
In his book The Opioid Crisis Wake-Up Call, Dave Chase explains the issues with outliers in our system. “Six to eight percent of plan members are spending 80 percent of the plan dollars,” Chase writes.
We probably imagine that our healthcare costs are so expensive because so many American’s don’t eat well and don’t exercise. I have argued in the past that we don’t support a universal healthcare system in our country because many people think the problem is that others are not taking responsibility for themselves and are simply fat and lazy, costing more for the rest of us. The reality is that a huge amount of our total healthcare spending, as much as 80% according to Chase, is from a tiny percent of the population. Our outliers are driving the cost of healthcare up at an alarming rate, and it is not simply because these outliers are fat and lazy.
The people who spend the most on healthcare mostly have rare diseases, congenital conditions, or need extreme emergency acute care. Chase writes, “They tend to have complex health problems, usually with multiple comorbidities.” Because we don’t recognize that most of our spending goes toward outliers, and because we are biased against a vision of fat and lazy people, we adopt policies that bankrupt these outliers who often were simply born with bad luck when it comes to health.
What is really detrimental to our system is that these outliers are often misdiagnosed. Chase writes, “In any given year, about 20 percent of the outlier group is completely misdiagnosed. This means that about 16 percent of plan dollars each year are being wasted on treatments for diseases the patients don’t have.” It will always be difficult to treat outliers. They are not typical patients, and have multiple health issues that interact in complex ways. But because we don’t make their care easy and because healthcare in the United States has so many barriers, we end up failing this population, and the errors and failures mean that we waste a huge amount of money and resources in their care. It doesn’t just cost the individual, but everyone on the healthcare plan.