Hospital Supply Chains : Past, Present, And Future

In the past several years, there have been several changes in economic policy at federal and state levels. The two economic policies that present to be the most precedent for healthcare leaders with concern to facility reimbursement are the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the switch from volume to value reimbursement. First, there is the ACA policy, which have affected healthcare facilities and their reimbursement methods. In fact, ever since this policy was implemented, provider reimbursement has started to decrease in terms of fee-for-service payments (The Common-Wealth Fund, 2015). In other words, the intention of this policy was to provide budget relief to the government payers as well as giving providers an incentive to provider patients with great quality of care.

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare bill into law. There has been much controversy over this Affordable Healthcare Act before and since it was signed into law. It was estimated that 30 million people would sign up for the new healthcare and that the healthcare industry would need a bigger workforce. Within hospitals across the United States there is already a shortage of nursing and medical staff. What will this new law mean for hospitals in their declining health care professionals? In what other ways will this healthcare law impact hospitals across the United States? This paper will attempt to explore some of the realities and possibilities in greater depth.

As discussed previously, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 passed by the legislature, drastically changed the entire healthcare economy. In fact, ever since the ACA was passed it was required by law for hospitals to increase the amount of attention given to the individuals of the community in order to meet their needs. Also, the ACA allowed close to 10 million individuals to have health insurance through Medicaid and private health insurances, which has a high impact on all the hospitals, such as Yale New Haven. For example, since millions of Americans can now afford health insurance, there is a large influx of patients who can go to hospitals and actually afford the overall cost. The non-profit hospital of Yale New Haven is benefiting in two ways. First, they are achieving their mission by caring for the individuals of their community who now have insurance and secondly, they are being compensated in terms of revenue to improve their organization in regards to hiring the greatest physicians and having the best technology and supplies to treat their large influx of patients (Cunningham, 2015). The rise in health insurances increases the total amount of money earned by that non-profit organization and the amount of patients receiving great quality of care.

One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to reduce healthcare spending in the US (DeMichele, 2015). However, the passage of the ACA has spurred activity that is counter to this goal of decreased spending in the form of increased hospital consolidation which many studies show has led to higher prices. While, there are many other effects of hospital consolidation such as the impact on quality of care or innovation, these topics are beyond the scope of this paper.

One policy that has changed the health care delivery to shift cost responsibility toward the hospital was the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. This policy has changed hospital reimbursement under Medicare with the introduction of diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) (Sultz & Young, 2009). The DRG prospective payment system rewarded hospitals financially for efficient care (specifically shorter hospital stays) and reduced the incentive to consume (Sultz & Young, 2009). Another policy that placed the burden of responsibility on the hospital was the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 which required hospitals to provide care to everyone who presented in the emergency department regardless of ability to pay (Sultz & Young, 2009). This law was designed with good intent to reduce the “patient dumping” that had arisen from the DRG system, but it nevertheless

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare bill into law. There has been much controversy over this Affordable Healthcare Act before and since it was signed into law. It was estimated that 30 million people would sign up for the new healthcare and that the healthcare industry would need a bigger workforce. Within hospitals across the United States there is already a shortage of nursing and medical staff. What will this new law mean for hospitals in their declining health care professionals? In what other ways will this healthcare law impact hospitals across the United States? This paper will attempt to explore some of the realities and possibilities in greater depth.

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare bill into law. There has been much controversy over this Affordable Healthcare Act before and since it was signed into law. It was estimated that 30 million people would sign up for the new healthcare and that the healthcare industry would need a bigger workforce. Within hospitals across the United States there is already a shortage of nursing and medical staff. What will this new law mean for hospitals in their declining health care professionals? In what other ways will this healthcare law impact hospitals across the United States? This paper will attempt to explore some of the realities and possibilities in greater depth.

As discussed previously, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 passed by the legislation, drastically changed the entire healthcare economy. In fact, ever since the ACA was passed it was required by law for hospitals to increase the amount of attention given to the individuals of the community in order to meet their needs. Also, the ACA allowed close to 10 million individuals to have health insurance through Medicaid and private health insurances, which has a high impact on all the hospitals, such as Yale New Haven. For example, since millions of Americans can now afford health insurance, there is a large influx of patients who can go to hospitals and are able to afford the overall cost. The non-profit hospital of Yale New Haven is benefiting in

Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law nearly five years ago, the rhetoric overt the law and its provisions continue in Congress and around every kitchen table in America. While no one disagrees the healthcare system prior to the passage of the ACA was flawed, healthcare reform under the ACA continues to evolve and is likely to continue evolving in the future. Despite this, it is the law, and the healthcare industry is doing its best to keep up with the law’s mandates. For the hospital healthcare administrator, there are numerous changes affecting how hospitals do business, not only with the insurance industry, but with patients as well. The following overview discusses the basics of the ACA, the positive and negative ramifications for hospitals, and the impact the law will have for years to come. Although the final incarnation of the Affordable Care Act will develop over time, its premise of ending healthcare disparities and quality care for all citizens is long overdue.

Changes in health care financing in the 1990s were accompanied by a variety of cost-cutting measures in hospitals across the United States.

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

The global data standard which uniquely recognizes the locations and products is been developed by GS1 in order to streamline the processes and improvise operative inefficiencies within the healthcare supply chain. These standards are created by healthcare industry itself, and are designed to address the challenges within the industry by giving a single, rich and global repository of precise and updated information which can be utilized by the stakeholders of the healthcare supply chain in order to simplify inventory management. All of these data standards exist in in a Global Location Number (GLN) registry, which is a global directory for entire the GS1 data standards in supply chain. Stakeholders of the supply chain such as providers, distributors,

Within the last decade, health care has gone through drastic changes due to reforms that have impacted all levels of the United States health care system. From the 2010 enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the financial operations of many medical institutions have faced many improved and challenging transformations. Many of these transformations included the day to day administrative tasks, increased overhead expenses, and incurred costs brought on by practice and hospital adherence to new reforms. Currently, there is much debate on new reforms that would assist in improving the financial operations of the current health care system. Correspondingly, strong reforms have the ability to assist in making the health care system more efficient

Hospitals are currently in a shift for better management of their resources and changing their mode of operations from socialistic to capitalistic. This is a change to streamline the delivery of services and use of products to ensure that they yield sustainable profits. This has resulted into hospital boards employing the services of C.E.Os who may not have a strong medical background, but with strong business management skills.

Hospitals and health systems in the U.S. are experiencing a remarkable transformation in their business models directed from numerous influences that are projected to ultimately turn the industry around. Pressures include providers troubled with the quantity of services they are responsible for, to providers who concentrate on presenting high-cost services that give emphasis to sustaining healthy populations (Dunn & Becker, 2013).