Opinion: The $4450 urgent care visit

According to the Institute of Medicine's president, Harvey Fineberg, MD, the annual excess cost in our health care system is estimated at 'An Institute of Medicine panel recently estimated annual excess cost from systemic waste at $765 billion ? including $210 billion in unnecessary services, $130 billion in inefficiently delivered services, $190 billion in excess administration costs, $105 billion in excessively high prices, $55 billion on missed opportunities for disease prevention, and $75 billion in fraud.' The $765 billion estimate seems exorbitant but my boyfriend's story exemplifies each of these wastes. The urgent care center preformed unnecessary services that took five hours to complete with an approximate total waiting time of three and half hours.