Doctors in the United States spend almost four times more on health insurance administrative costs than their neighbors up north, according to new data.

Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Toronto found per-physician costs in the Unites States averaged $82,975 each year, while Ontario-based doctors averaged $22,205. The difference is primarily attributed to Canada's single-payer health care system, which researchers say is simpler.

Canadian physicians follow a single set of rules while U.S. doctors grapple with different sets of regulations, procedures and forms mandated by each health insurance plan or payer. Though American doctors spend only about one hour more each week personally interacting with health plans than Canadian doctors do, it's a different burden here. Nurses and other medical staff in the United  States spend 20.6 hours per physician per week on administrative duties; their Canadian counterparts spend only 2.5 hours.

“The magnitude of that difference is what is interesting,” says Sean Nicholson, Cornell professor of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology. “It's the nurse time and the clerical time, rather than physician time, that's different. That's driving the increased costs.”

The researchers recommend U.S. policymakers and health insurers standardize transactions and conduct them electronically to save time and money. That could result in a savings of $27 billion every year.

“That's what we hope will come out of this—that informed decisions can be made by private and public health care insurers about what really works and what is not worth the money,” Nicholson says.

The study appeared in the August issue of Health Affairs.