In its Tuesday report, making a case for savings in the health sector, health insurance biggie UnitedHealth Group Inc. has noted that reducing paperwork hassles and updating administrative technology can bring about a $332 billion saving for the US health system, over the next ten-year period.

The report, the insurer's second one amidst the ongoing health reforms debate, said that the savings could help in counterbalancing the subsidy cost of health care extension for the newly insured.

Elaborating its point while unveiling its 12 cost-cutting options, at a Washington, D.C., briefing of the Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth, the insurer said that the nearly 50 percent of the savings would go to hospitals and doctors; 20 percent to the federal government's Medicare and Medicaid programs; and the remaining 30 percent to health insurers.

At the meeting, UnitedHealth's Executive VP, Simon Stevens, said: "Doctors, hospitals, health plans all waste time and money dealing with administrative processes that are overly paper based, duplicative or redundant." The report said that nearly $109 billion can be saved by eliminating unnecessary paper-work in favor of electronic funds transfers!

In its earlier report last month, UnitedHealth had said that by applying a few of the programs that UnitedHealth uses with its own plans, the federal government can realize $540 billion savings in Medicare costs over the next decade!