Health Care Cost

Health care expenses are a never ending headache that create numerous liabilities. Liabilities are created when goods or services are purchased on credit and obtained through short- term and long- term loans. Health care expenses create liabilities such that payments are made late or no payments are made at all. In some cases, the cost of health care expenses are unaffordable resulting in those type of payments. To prevent large health care debt, many individuals seek health insurance. Health insurance is provided by private insurance companies or by the government. It covers health care expenses and provides the necessary health care. Although, health insurance is necessary it can also be very costly.

Medicaid initially established that each state is responsible for designing their medical costs to pay medical care for the poor. Also, Medicaid created as a voluntary program for each state; they have to have the choice to participate. For one thing, because of the rising costs of healthcare, it has been difficult to bring Medicaid recipients into the “mainstream” of United States (U.S.) medical care. Donald R. Barr notes, “between 1975 and 1989, the cost of the Medicaid program increased by an average of 11.9 percent per year before adjusting for inflation” (172). The rising costs of healthcare are necessary for each state to determine if it is beneficial for them to participate in the Medicaid program. As the government level of payment is determined by each state economic condition. For instance, a state with lower per capita income will receive more government funding. A state with higher per capita income receives less reimbursement for program costs. Therefore, on December 31, 2010, many states continued to experience budget cuts. As a result on August 2010, Congress increased reimbursement rates through June 2011.

Effective financial management is the basis of thriving health care organizations. Organizations must make good investment decisions based on objective analysis (Healthcare Financial Management Association [HFMA], 2005). Integration of financial management principles provides decision makers with guidance to make capital decisions maximize mission-based benefits at effective costs (HFMA, 2005). An operating budget is the statement of profit and loss for the entire organization. Various health care entities prepare operating budget for the following year for discussion and approval by top management (Academic Writing Tips, 2011). At the end of the year, departmental managers provide an account for the previous year’s

Today, health care issues within the United States are still a major concern in regards to where people of our communities do not always agree with what is being done and what is not being done. The three major issues with health care spending is how much is it going to cost and where is the money going to come from? The amount of per-patient costs have doubled more in the United States than other nations around us. The last issue is the amount of Americans that has no health care at all. This paper will discuss the healthcare expenditures that is necessary for our entire population.

Health care is the upkeep and improvement of physical and mental well being. It is conveyed by experts in united health, dentistry, birthing assistance obstetrics, medication, nursing, optometry, drug store and other care suppliers. It alludes to the work done in giving essential care, optional care, and tertiary care, and in broad daylight health. The United States alone populates 314 million individuals, out of this unbelievable number just 60 million were uninsured. There are three significant issues in healthcare today; billions of dollars are continuously squandered and costs are soaring, the trade commercial center, and unnecessary care and endures motivation by the way we pay for care.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the United States spent $3 trillion on health care in 2014 and the projected growth in health spending for 2015 – 2025 is 5.8 percent per year (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2015). The prior CMS administrator, Dr. Donald M. Berwick stated in 2011 that 20 to 30 percent of health care spending did not provide any benefit to patients (Perez, 2014). Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) was created as a strategy to suppress the rising cost and waste of health care by implementing change in the way providers deliver care.

Approximately $2.7 trillion is spent annually on health care. That is more than one-sixth of the U.S. economy that is devoted to healthcare and that fraction will continue to grow as the years go on. Regrettably, experts agree that an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the trillions spent goes to inefficient and wasteful care.

(Senteniel) Additional studies show risk of errors and close calls were related to longer shift length and were associated with decreased attentiveness. Nurses also suffer higher rates of occupational injury when working shifts more than 12 hours. (Joint Commision, 20111) The ANA acknowledges the relationship between working long hours and increased risk for sleep disturbances, injuries, musculoskeletal disorders, gastrointestinal problems, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and adverse reproductive outcomes. (NANN, 2012) In addition to clinical outcomes, there is an association between nurses who worked 13 or more hours in the hospital and lack of communication with patients regarding pain control. Burnout is common among nurses working long shifts and they are more than likely to leave their job within the first year. Shifts scheduled for 12 hours often exceed that timeframe, as many as 40% of the work shifts logged for their study exceeded 12 hours. (Martin, 2012) There are many reasons for fatigue, but shift length is the one that is most obvious and easy to fix. It is no wonder for nurse fatigue when 12 hour shifts are the norm. Twelve hour shifts are standard practice even though the Institute of Medicine recommends limiting them. At a recent nursing management congress Cole Edmonson stated that 12 hour shifts may cause more problems than they solve. While research is aiding us comprehend the dangers nurse fatigue brings to patients and nurses themselves, he called 12 hour shifts “a dead idea whose time has passed”. Eliminating 12 hour shifts is obvious if the fact is acknowledged that nurse fatigue is a serious problem. (Hendren,

My position on national health care spending is way too much monies is going out and not enough people supporting the problem. A universal health care plan for every man, woman, and child who resides in the United States is the most economical way to achieve this goal. All working citizens must have monies automatically taken out of their paychecks and if you can afford more than the basic plan, then there will be plans available that you can upgrade to like Aflac. No matter how poor or how rich you are, everyone has the basic plan and everyone contributes to that plan. In this paper we will discuss the current level of national health care expenditures, the level of spending, where the nation should cut, and how the

Healthcare can be described as the maintenance and improvement of health using different measures such as diagnosis, prevention and treatment of illnesses, diseases, injuries, physical and mental impairment in human beings. The providers of healthcare are referred to as practitioners. In the United States, there are various organizations which provide healthcare services. the government hospitals and other healthcare facilities constitute 21%, for-profit organization constitute 21% and 58% of the hospitals are owned by the non-profit organizations.

Health care is a huge added player in the hat rides the Current national expenditure levels in the United States has more than tripled in the past decade, while the amount of Americans that can afford private health insurance has dropped and the number of people relying on Medicaid and Medicare has increased with the aging baby boomer generation. Medicaid and Medicare being two of the governments most used medical insurances, the spending in health care has grown faster than the economy can bear. The Medicare physician reimbursement system provides a kind of “public good” for other insurance programs; that is, it offers a

Health care costs currently exceed around twenty percent and continue to rise where other countries spend less of their funding on health care but have the same increasing trend. An aging population and the development of new treatments are cause for some of the increase. Unrealistic incentives also contribute: third-party insurance companies and governments who reimburse for procedures performed rather than outcomes achieved, and patients bear little responsibility for the cost of the health care services they demand. However, few acknowledge a more fundamental source of increasing costs: the system by which those costs are measured. Honestly, there is almost a complete lack of understanding of how much it costs to deliver patient care,

After reviewing several studies a common use of qualitative research techniques focused on developing understandings about fatigue on physicians in their real time environment and the processes involved. The results from Dula 's et al. (2001) study were astonishing (see Appendix A for more information on the KAIT results). Of the 16 emergency physicians tested, KAIT scores showed a significant difference in day shift and night shift emergency physicians. The conclusion was a decline in cognitive performance after working five night shifts.

Medicaid is one of the factors that can cause the cost curve to shift. The government funded insurance has a profound impact on the cost curve as it increases the cost of health care to recoup funds to cover the cost of care for Medicaid recipients. Health information technology is a subsequent factor that influences the cost curve. In the age of technology, health care organizations must have updated equipment to aid them in providing faster top notch care. In both of these instances, there needs to be a way to fund Medicaid and technology consequently; these costs are passed on to the consumer causing the cost curve to shift increasing the cost of medical services.

It is estimated that more than 1.3 million medical errors occur in the United States every year. Around 48,000 of these errors results in the patient’s death. There are quite a number of reason why healthcare errors occur. The most prevalent reason is the working hours for healthcare practitioners. A majority of healthcare practitioners are required to work for long hours due to a shortage of healthcare staffs in most healthcare facilities. One of the ways healthcare facilities have tried to meet the shortage of healthcare practitioners is by making them work for more hours during their work shifts. The normal working hours for a healthcare practitioner is supposed to be an average