Healthcare Econometrics

This article compares the magnitude of economies and 14 non-scale producing cost centers in hospital.

The five most important characteristics for a healthcare provider is honesty, patience, empathy, responsibility, and a team player. I picked honesty because for me honesty is important because if I was the patient I would like for the nurses and doctors be completely honest with me. To be honest you have trustful. Patients should be able to always have faith in you. You always have to be honest with the patients no matter what. Honesty has a lot to do with the healthcare industry.

Throughout the history of the United States, the economics of the health care system has experienced many changes. There are many factors to consider that has been the drive behind many of the changes within the health care system. Medical and surgical technologies are some factors that relate to the changes in health care. Besides these factors, allocating sources to fund health care services has always been the most critical factor. One might consider the economic term supply and demand when looking at the history of health care economics and the primary funding source. Health care funding

One of the issues is the increasing cost of healthcare which is dominating the health policy in U.S. this is accompanied by an increase in spending on healthcare. According to projections by the government, the spending on medical care will continue to rise. U.S spends more money on health care than any other nation globally (Holtz, 2013). The increase in the spending is as a result of improved tools for disease diagnosis, better surgical interventions among others. This raises an issue for the policy makers on the maximum GDP percentage that a country has to spend on healthcare, and whether the nation will afford the cost that is continually growing. In contemplating any change in the health policy, policy makers should consider the cost of the healthcare and the ability of the nation to support that high cost.

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

Forecasting is an important tool to help healthcare managers prepare for the challenges associated with rising health care costs. As the healthcare landscape continues to change, managers look at the past and present to predict the future. The U.S. government is major provider of health insurance for the elderly and disable persons. The government’s portion for covering healthcare costs has risen steadily, from 43% in 1980 and 38% in 1970 (Miller & Washington, 2006 p. 40). Medicare is the single largest source of payment for beneficiary health care costs; it covers about half of the cost of health care (Healthcare Financing Administration, 2006). The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which also provides medical coverage to low income persons, must also be factored into the cause and effect analysis. As a result of the changing landscape of health insurance, healthcare managers rely of analytical forecasting to predict future healthcare costs, examine cause and effect relationships and prepare their organization to provide quality affordable care to their patients.

To add to the dilemma, the rising cost of healthcare will not adequately be addressed by any new healthcare system. The costs of healthcare in America are staggering and currently represent over 17% of our national GDP with the expectation of that number rising to 20% in less than 5 years. These costs are direct hits on the revenues received by hospital which affect their ability to remain operational. As the hospital’s revenues and profit margin decrease, so does the expected longevity of the hospital.

Implication of this shift for hospitals is very important because hospitals inpatient have decreased. Hospitals are losing more money due to the growth of ambulatory care facilities. Ambulatory care facilities can affect hospital fiscal health by attracting many profitable services away from the hospitals. Consumers are saving more money because they can get good quality of care for less money and less hospital stay than hospitals. This can impact health care delivery system because they will be more competition between those ambulatory care facilities and hospitals.

I personally feel the affect economics have on healthcare or the lack there of, can never be explained any clearer; unless you are experiencing it yourself.

From 1991 going forward, the health care environment again experienced fundamental changes as a result of the deregulation of hospitals which according to Ingols and Brem (as cited in Swayne, Duncan, and Ginter, 2006) was occurring for the first time in a decade. According to the authors, the impact of the move was immediate. Following the deregulation, the financial viability of most hospitals was

Economic indicators refer to economic series statistical figures used to make future prediction economic activity in the organization or country. The economic indicators are useful in each organization since they measure specific economic parameters in the market and can be used to forecast the future market trends (Baumohl, 2016). For instance, the company like Disney uses these economic indicators to curb and minimizes the difficult economic situation that may arise. There are so many different types of the economic indicators used. In this case, the Disney Company will use the following economic indicators: consumer price index; productivity and cost; employment cost index; producer price index; consumer confidence

Against a background of increasing demands on limited resources, health economics is exerting an influence on decision making at all levels of health care. Health economics seeks to facilitate decision making by offering an explicit decision making framework based on the principle of efficiency. It is not the only consideration but it is an important one and practitioners will need to have an understanding of its basic principles and how it can impact on clinical decision making.

The current research programs in the Centre for Health Economic at Monash University took my interest as the university is providing a wide range of research areas in the field of Health Economics. Furthermore, the researches are mainly centred on economic evaluation, health outcomes and performance in the health care system which help me to get a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of micro econometrics and other statistical methods, while focusing on Health Economics. In addition to my postgraduate experience, during my volunteer work at King Edward Memorial Hospital and Multiple Sclerosis Society of Western Australia, I have acquired experience in designing questionnaires in relation to ongoing health programs and analysed the surveys’ data focusing on pre-and post-health outcomes. All these academic and extracurricular activities enhance my interest in Health Economics and therefore I am willing to go for further studies to have a sound knowledge of in this specific field.

The hospital industry consist of privately and publicly owned and operated hospitals and medical facilities. The financial backgrounds of these assorted categories of organizations are sizeable and contrasted. Therefore, industry ratios are to be considered and evaluated from a greater proportion in order to identify with the financial data involving the industry as a whole (Dunn & Becker, 2013). Based on analysis and evaluation of the financial ratios gained from Nasdaq and Google Finance, it is apparent that the hospital industry is gradually rising and supports increase in profitability. These ratios are divided into several categories: Growth rates, financial strength, valuation, profitability, efficiency, dividends, and management effectiveness.

A key aspect of economics is the collection and analysis of the vast amounts of data generated throughout global economies. The interpretation of this data can provide important signals for the future direction of the economy. There are two forms of signals that arise from the various economic data that is collected. The first are direct signals, which measure the movement in what is being measured. These usually take the form of a given macro indicator.