There are 10 key economic concepts of health care. Each of the economic concepts is important when evaluating the different issues related to health care such as the increasing cost of health care. Henderson (2015), list the 10 concepts as follows: scarcity and choice, opportunity cost, marginal analysis, self-interest, markets and pricing, supply and demand, competition, efficiency, market failure, and comparative, advantage. The concept scarcity and choice address the issues related to the limited supply resources and the need to economize (Henderson, 2015). An illustration of the importance of the scarcity and choice concept is when there is a low quantity of available resources to meet the demand of individuals and rationing occurs. Opportunity cost emphasizes
Understanding the Value of Health Care “Health maintenance organization (HMO) quality on several primary care indicators and more rapid quality improvement, despite its substantially lower level of expenditure” (Rosen, et al., 2011, p. 15). In the medicinal services organization, the proper goal of any human services system is to grow the cost dispersed to patients. The cost of the human services measured as far as the patient results achieved per dollar expended. It does not matter the kind of various service supplier or volume of service delivered that matters, however, the cost. More care and expensive care is not really better
One of the biggest industries in the United States is health care industry, which accounts for over 17.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. This big representation of the nation’s economic activities impacts the overall economy. In other ways, it’s also impacted by the general economy. While the health care industry continues to grow, transformational changes also continue to enforce change in its organizational structure. Change in organizational structure enables health care providers to make arrangement for the change. In this case, the overall health care providers’ advance in new medical technology (to provide the best quality services), financial system, and the entire health care service structure, rules,
After getting the views and suggestions all discuss this with hospital management and other stakeholders of the hospital to come with a reasonable prices which will make sure the health care provide by the hospital is affordable to everyone and is best quality. As much the patient may wish the prices to be reduced the quality of the health care cannot be compromised to the expenses of providing cheap health care. The prices being suggested should be in a position to support the normal functioning of the hospital.
The external stakeholders are the community, patients, MedKey System members, CMS, HMOs (ie. Blue Cross Blue Shield and Tri-Care), and any other private insurances (Richards & Slovensky, 2004). Medicare reimbursement in Alabama was the lowest rate in the nation. This was a constant struggle for the hospital administrators to try to operate on such low reimbursements for their services, which is a threat. Eighty percent of patients were Medicare or Blue Cross in which there was difficulty-negotiating prices with Blue Cross due to monopoly. Buyers have high bargaining power as reimbursements rates are low from Medicare and Blue Cross held monopoly in the services area so negotiating prices was difficult. Suppliers have lower bargaining power due to low Medicare reimbursements and difficulty negotiating prices with Blue
Running head: COST AND QUALITY ANALYSIS Healthcare cost and quality Grand Canyon University July 24th, 2012 Ethics, Policy, and Finance in the Health Care System Sally L. Clark A challenge that the healthcare nation is facing is to provide the quality of care that is expected and obtain low healthcare cost. Working hand in hand with the private sector and government is in hopes of improving the quality of care that each patient deserves and maintaining the cost so that research can continue. The purpose of this paper is to look into relationships between healthcare cost and quality healthcare.
Another factor that has contributed to the over-utilization and increased treatment charges is the fact that providers set the prices for services. Patients were free to seek any type of healthcare services that they thought they required for their well-being, while providers set the costs for each service that was billed to indemnity insurance companies (Shi & Singh, 2015). Insurance companies had little control on the types of services that the patient received and prices billed for each service. The fee-for-service model encourages excessive and unwarranted procedures and offers no incentives to utilize economical services
Regulations that prevent insurance companies from participating in interstate commerce have caused competition to grow stagnant in the United States. This lack of competition has allowed the adoption of wasteful procedures by healthcare providers, which in turn passes the increased expenses back to the insurance companies. Therein, insurance costs increase, crippling consumer’s cash flow and quality of life. While healthcare costs continue to rise, people must scrutinize the current healthcare system.
Terms Comparison Paper HCS/552 February 4, 2013 John J. Schibler Terms Comparison Paper Health care economics involves making plenty of choices. Individuals, groups, businesses, and organizations choose how to use resources . Economics and health care are linked, because health care professionals apply economics in their everyday professional activities. They are able to do this through resource allocation. Any health care organization has to plan out how they will use their resources to their advantage. Health care economics are able to incorporate terms like cost, quality, and resources. In this paper, I will compare these terms as they relate to health care economics. In this paper, I will also explain how they
A New Social Contract for Health Care Insurance Costs The new social contract between the health care system and employers, patients, and the government has given everyone involved some breathing room. They have provided a clearer picture of the costs of health care; however, it is evident that there is still work to be done regarding the transparency of complete and exact costs. For example; all hospitals have a price list called the chargemaster that includes nearly 20,000 health care procedures. The prices on this list are the prices that patients will most likely see on their bills; however, the terms are not standardized and many are bundled services that make it difficult to compare them with other institutions. It is obvious
Unfortunately, although antitrust agencies are paying attention to recent court actions against mergers, the FTC investigates only 1-2% of consolidations (McCanne, 2014). It is also important to remember than public payers such as Medicare and Medicaid set prices to physicians and hospitals with no room for negotiating and conversely private
After doing some research I was able to find a great website that describes this question as it relates many studies. For example, “Within the health care industry, competition impacts several relational perspectives; with numerous studies reporting the impact of increased competition. For example, several studies have examined the relationships
Assignment 4 Introduction It is essential to acknowledge the fact that the costs of health care in the United States is expensive. Furthermore, many factors influence the inflation of health care costs. Consequently, there have been numerous failed attempts to control the costs of health care. As a result, some of the failed attempts to control the increasing costs of health care were lowering health care provider payments, decreasing health benefits, and increasing out-of-pocket costs for patients (Shannon, 2009). Overall, one definition of cost containment is to contain health care providers ' profits and income (Oberland, 2011). However, it seems that containment should also focus on the high medical service prices as well. The purpose of this paper is to reconcile cost containment and quality of care.
Reasons why health care costs are high and continue to increase includes the rate of growth of health care spending continuing to significantly outpace the rate of GDP growth, which means medical costs increases outpace inflation. Furthermore, healthcare costs are still an issue is because of lack of well-developed competitive markets. People do not have the option to directly pay for the health care cost, therefore, they are disconnected from making informed decisions about their health care costs. In addition, patients not being able to be the central actors in the medical marketplace continues to make this topic an issue. Moreover, patients and market places are not the center stage, however, if these two influence are given more focus, costs of health care can get under
Another group often blocked is complementary or alternative health care practitioners. These restrictions and the insurance industry unwillingness to pay for these services, gives the physicians an almost monopolist control over health care. Providers must be able to enter the market for competition to work and there must be many providers vying for the patient. To get the most out of health insurance plans Consolidation of hospitals and multispecialty group practices increases the negotiating leverage of the group but in certain areas of the US a single large medical system has become the sole provider of major health service thereby restricting competition (Shi & Singh, 2008). This consolidation while giving the hospitals and group practice leverage when negotiating prices of supplies and services tends to increase the price of health care to the patient because there is no longer any competition (Shi & Singh, 2008). For these reason “competition will remain less effective in most health care markets, because the prerequisite for fully competitive markets are not fully met” (Federal Trade, 2004, p. 20).