Studies over the years have suggested that too many patients receive certain "low-value" health care services that run up costs, but aren't always very helpful.
A new study takes a large sample of claims data collected by Optum, the Eden Prairie-based data division at UnitedHealth Group, and looks at how often a group of 1.46 million adults used 28 low-value services during 2013.
The answer: Nearly 115,000 patients received low-value services in 2013 resulting in $32.8 million in spending, which was about 0.5 percent of total spending during the period.
That works out to about $22 per person, according to the study published Monday as a research letter in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
The most commonly received low-value services: Hormone tests for thyroid problems; Imaging for low-back pain; and imaging for uncomplicated headache. In terms of dollars, the biggest driver of cost was spending for spinal injection for lower-back pain at $12.1 million, according to the report from researchers at RAND Corporation and the University of Southern California.
Imaging for uncomplicated headaches ran up an estimated $3.6 million in costs, while imagining for non-specific low-back pain cost $3.1 million.
In the study write-up, researchers said there's an estimated $750 billion of wasteful health care spending each year in the U.S., including about $200 billion in over treatment.
"Reducing overuse could improve quality and access while reducing spending," researchers wrote in the journal article.
