Healthcare Vs Primary Care

The U.S. Healthcare delivery system has been impacted with increasing administrative costs and a recent survey by Casalino revealed that physicians are spending about three hours each week working on the health plans they support. The time is being consumed on many administrative tasks that include confirming that the medication being prescribed is covered, checking if specialist is in the plan’s preferred network, and managing the preauthorization of medical forms for specific care.

There are various models designed to enhance the quality of health care provided in today’s society. Within the health care system the objective is to provide quality care to the patient is the primary goal, however, over time due to such a strong concentration on this objective expenses have been forgotten. Medical care has now grown to a ridiculous expense. Congress, medical professionals, administrators, and many others are now devising various plans and models to attempt to conquer and eliminate such expenses. The patient centered medical home, managed care plans, and accountable care organizations are just some of the ideas

United States has no dearth of highly qualified, well-trained doctors and still the US healthcare quality fails to meet the established industry benchmarks. Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) 2001 Report, “Crossing the Quality Chasm”, clearly states that the American healthcare delivery system is in need of a pivotal change. (Committee on Quality of Healthcare in America (Institute of Medicine), 2001). The exasperation level is continuously rising amongst both, the patients and the providers, and yet the problem of delivering and receiving high quality care remains unaffected. In order to address this problem of healthcare quality improvement and affordability, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or Obamacare) was signed in

It is important to note that physicians help in recognizing the costs of resources associated with patients being treated for chronic illness, acute care, and palliative care services. More important, they provide prospects to decrease complications, and deliberate the contribution of numerous physicians in the care of the patient (Shi, 2012, p. SR4). Therefore, offering services such as that of primary care providers and clinicians that use a methodical knowledge base and have the expertise necessary to direct the delivery of personal health services to patients across the continuum of care will be beneficial to overall patient outcomes (Shi, 2012, p. 3). In order to facilitate success in creating alliances with other health care providers in managing the continuum of care for patients and coordinate care effectively, physician engagement is needed. According to the special report, key benefit found in a data analytics survey for the state and local government officials was centered on informed decision-making reflected 66%. Thus providing the agencies better decisions affecting finances, payroll, and human resource

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,

U.S Healthcare expenditures are too high - nearly $9000 per capita. With healthcare cost rising rapidly, a change to how we approach healthcare systems has to be reviewed. Dr. Davis, the writer of this article makes the point that as times have passed; due to the higher cost of care, a huge opportunity for hospital mergers to happen is needed in order to continue to improve and drive higher quality in

The United States Health Care system has evolved from the home visit by the town doctor concept, to a more complex system of regulatory agencies, policies, rules and regulations that govern the practice and art of medicine. It is a system in which billions of dollars have been budgeted and dedicated to ensuring the country is delivering affordable, quality care. The ultimate goal of the U.S. system is making sure quality care is accessible to its consumers and is value added care that will result in clinical outcomes aimed at reducing the nation’s mortality rate and increasing or extending the average life expectancy. In

The US healthcare system has recently undergone major shift from an indemnity plan to a managed care system. This has accompanied the rise in health care cost, along with increase in our population and increase in numbers of people without health insurance. There are important situational and economic factors, in addition to cultural beliefs that contribute to the change. In the traditional US health care system, patient received complex care from non-profit independent hospitals. The insurance reimbursed hospitals, physicians, and other providers on a fee-for-service basis and did not intervene in medical decision making. Physicians acted as patient’s agents. Whereas, the managed care focuses on reducing overutilizing and unnecessary utilization,

            Healthcare charges are surging out of control. Kaiser Permanente has an Integrated Delivery System that delivers the best care at the lowest possible cost. Kaiser Permanente works intensely to keep down cost while also maintaining quality of care. They work with their members to improve lifestyles and maintain wellness. Integrated healthcare systems are found in large multi-specialty medical group practices with transparent pharmacies, labs and hospitals. Kaiser Permanente uses sharing information systems to track the overall healthcare activities of a particular patient. This method is beneficial for the patient because they are able to avoid the hassle of paying co-payments here and there. They offer email and other communication tools between patient and doctor. More importantly, the patient’s personal health record, “My Health Manager” is available online at no extra cost. “My Health Manager” allows the patient to order prescriptions, view their lab

U.S. healthcare delivery system is very fragmented. In 2004, health information exchange (HIE) was formulated by President Bush. “The HIE networks has the potential to reduce up to 18% of patient safety errors and as many as 70% of preventable adverse drug events across the care continuum” (Joshua & Larry, 2010). The desire to improve health care quality, efficiency and safety while lowering costs led to a sharp rise in the level of interest and activity amongst healthcare systems in developing regional health information networks (RHINs) or community health information networks (CHINs). Also, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 was signed into law to promote widespread use of electronic medical

Numerous problems plague the US healthcare system today, each of which is capable of preventing millions of Americans from gaining appropriate health coverage for themselves and for their families. Costs of health insurance are skyrocketing, leavings millions of Americans with the decision of paying for the “luxury” of insurance or spending the money in ways that may be more necessary at the time of the decision. Another major problem that affects the structural integrity of the healthcare system relates to the issues of malpractice, in terms of the ability of doctors to meet the incredible costs while keeping their business afloat. A final problem has to deal with the overall efficiency of US healthcare spending as compared with the rest of the world. These problems lead to much turmoil in the US healthcare system which only ranked 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization.

Since health care system in U.S is largely private, so it faces more competition on cost and quality than any other place in the World. Like every other industry, rise and fall in the health care market also present. But due to absence of healthy competition, prices are enormous and growing, facilities are constrained and standards of care often lag or do not follow accepted benchmarks. Huge quality and cost differences exist in providers and it persist across geographical areas in U.S. Innovations are slow as it takes almost 17 years for a clinical trial to be used as regular practice. All of these things are unendurable for well-being of patients, and for fitness of their health.

Healthcare in the US has been facing some serious challenges for past many decades which not only affects quality of care in hospitals but also raises medical costs. Some of the key problems facing healthcare are as follows;

Primary clinics also known as ambulatory clinics are outpatient settings where the client/patient doesn’t need over night stay services. Primary care facilities provide health promotion, disease prevention, health maintenance, counseling, patient education diagnosis, and treatment of acute and chronic illnesses. They provide services for children, young adults and older adults. Unlike hospitals primary clinics are more accessible because they are greater in number and available in more locations. Primary facilities are not only where patients go when they are ill, they are also facilities where patients get different types of services, including yearly screenings, vaccinations, and many more services. The providers of these facilities are personal

The U.S. health care system faces multiple challenges. There is an urgent need for reforms and the U.S. government has centered its attention on uninsured individuals and the implementation of new quality assurance policies to reconstruct the current dysfunctional system. Quality assurance policies, initiatives and measures aim to accomplish better, well-coordinated patient care by assessing the following properties; efficiency, effectiveness, safety, equity and timeliness.