The nation’s largest health insurer says we can save well over $300 billion in the health care system over the next decade by streamlining administrative procedures and making better use of technology.

In a report released yesterday, UnitedHealth Group proposed twelve broad reforms to the administrative and transactional aspects of the U.S. health care system that it estimates can save $332 billion over 10 years.

Through twelve building blocks we identify administrative savings opportunities of $332 billion in national health expenditure over the next decade. These savings would be likely to benefit families and employers through lower health care costs. As importantly, they would simplify the lives of patients, and eliminate much frustration on the part of doctors and hospitals.

The proposed changes include more widespread use of automated swipe cards to validate patient benefits, elimination of paper checks and remittance advice (to be replaced with electronic systems), and creation of a national payment accuracy clearinghouse. The report, “Health Care Cost Containment—How Technology Can Cut Red Tape and Simplify Health Care Administration” also recommends using predictive modeling to pre-score insurance claims.

Simon Stevens, UnitedHealth’s executive vice president, said that these changes must be applied across the entire health care sector for maximum effect. From BNA:

Stevens said the administration of health represents the “invisible wiring” of the system and must be addressed as part of comprehensive reform. “Getting it right offers huge opportunities to simplify the experience that patients have every day when they interact with the system and to reduce a lot of the frustration that doctors, hospitals, and health plans all experience,” he said.

"Other sectors of the economy have mastered it long ago, and it's time for healthcare to catch up," Stevens told Reuters.