Hospital Trends 1. How is the current economic environment affecting hospitals? According to the article, “The Economic Downturn and Its Impact on Hospitals”, the current economic environment is affecting hospitals and other heath care facilities in a number of ways. The most common issue relates to inability of the hospitals to obtain and secure relevant financing that enables health institutions to meet their daily obligations. Since most payments in hospitals lags behind the amount expected to deliver health care, most of the times hospitals are forced to borrow funds from financial institutions to meet their operating expenses. With this issue of economic downturn, borrowing funds from financial institutions has become very …show more content…
Hospitals need to analyze their services and health programs, and only engage in activities which are beneficial and cost effective to them, taking into consideration the wellbeing of the patients (TREADWATCH, 2009). The current Hospitals goals should be changed to focus on making health care affordable to all, by categorically making their patients to adopt government insurance programs, which are more stable and with fewer risks of problems associated with economic down turn. Hospitals should also adopt effective management systems, which would make them more competent in managing their debts and cash. The health care institutions should establish other money generating programs in order to reduce their over dependence on loans from banks. Health is something important for a given nation, and the entire globe for that matter. This means that it would be necessary that a proper method for financing healthcare be formulated towards ensuring there is a proper health structure. This is the main reason why innovative finance comes in as a very good approach towards effective health .Innovative financing is a modern approach that has been noted to come with a number of possibilities towards increasing overall economic development while bringing in positive possibilities which can effectively accelerate all the measures and processes put in place towards poverty reduction (Primer, 2007). 3. What similarities and
Decrease in funding is another economic challenge in health care. The amount of finances coming from various sources not just the
Access to quality healthcare is the one of the top stories in international news today. Most countries around the world are finding different ways to control cost and delivery quality healthcare to its populations. Most countries have the difficult task of offering quality healthcare at an affordable price, without crashing the financial market within the countries. With a growing population and an elderly demographic that are living longer, this has caused a strain on healthcare resources that has a high cost on the economy that is limited. In the United States “Universal Healthcare” is a concept that was introduced to Americans since Bill Clinton has been President. Along with the United States, other countries are preparing for a
One of the major problems facing our country today is the healthcare crisis. The inequality in our current healthcare system has created a huge gap in the difference between the level and the quality of healthcare that different people receive. Having an improved and reliable health care system available for everyone should be a priority that the government must make available. There are countries whose health care system meets the needs of the patients while there are countries whose health care systems need a great amount of overhaul for them to be able to attend to their patients. In this essay I will discuss the healthcare crisis and the differences in many countries
In a world of budget cut and layoffs, medical corporations face new and different challenges in addition to helping and healing patients. I used to work as a medical biller in a physician’s office for five years and I experienced how difficult for the health care providers to get reimbursed. The government and the insurance companies have been limiting the budget towards the health care services. This action also affects the hospitals greatly because Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and some policymakers have requested the hospitals to reduce the
Hospital financing is done regionally by implementing an increase on historical spending. The Minister of Information has implied that this system is inefficient and actually rewards hospital inefficiency with larger budgets. This will severely weaken the healthcare system in the long run.
The recent economy inflation in the year 2008 is an illustration of how the economy can affect the health care system. Therefore, it is imperative that the government take measures to prevent regulations in the health sector. This is by taking part in offering inducements to health care providers, offering public insurance policies and such.
In light of these new traits of the society, the health care sector must develop itself and address the new needs of the society. Furthermore, these new needs are not only shaped by the changes in the life style of the population, but other traits as well. For instance, at a demographic level, it is noted that the population ages at a rapid rate and requires more health care. Then, at an economic level, it is noted how the internationalized economic crisis poses new threats and limits the population's access to health care.
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.
Healthcare financing is proven to be challenging. A balance between adequate access, acceptable quality and affordable cost are the main objectives of a healthcare system (Paterson, 2014, p. 13). The island of Tekram is finding extremely difficult to achieve a solution to the current crisis of their healthcare system. The objective to this case study is to recommend a new healthcare strategy to island government.
Since the 1965 some major changes have occurred within Health Services. One change that occurred specifically was in 1965 Medicaid and Medicare brought Federal and State government into direct financing of medical care. The result of Medicare and Medicaid escalated in the overall cost of health care. Medicare and Medicaid also resulted in more federal regulations and modified direction of technological change in medicine. The increased role of health care services expenditure in the total gross domestic product has provided us with information the health care costs have been continually increasing. When enacted Medicare reimbursed hospitals on a cost basis, but in 1983 HCFA began to pay hospitals using DRGs, which pay a
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 effects of health care on the economy are double-edged; they are both positive and negative, but regarding them as either of the two depends on the angle at which they are assessed. From the positive point of view, healthcare improves people’s health, making them economically active (Eneji, Juliana and Onabe 259). Being economically active, people engage in production, which boosts their economic position as well as the economic conditions of their country. Healthcare is also a major source of employment, which means that it creates revenue to a large number of people. With revenue, employees hired in healthcare facilities can grow themselves economically (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation 4). In addition, spending
The major difference between healthcare finance terminology and business finance terminology is that these terms focus on factors unique to the health services industry. For example, the provision of health services is dominated by not-for-profit or¬ganizations (such as ours), which are inherently different from investor-owned businesses. Also, the majority of payments made to health¬care providers for services are not made by patients—the consumers of the services—but rather by some third-party payer (e.g., a commercial insurance company or a government program). Even the purchase of health insurance is dominated by employers rather than by the individuals who receive the services. These terms emphasize ways in which the unique features of the health services industry affect financial decisions. The healthcare industry is a service industry. It is not in the business of manufacturing, say, widgets. Instead its essential business is the delivery of healthcare services. It may have inventories of medical supplies and drugs, but those inventories are necessary to service delivery, not to manufacturing functions. Because the business of healthcare is a service, this overview of key healthcare terminology will focus on the practice of financial management in the services industry.
The problem at Memorial Hospital is the focus on costs instead of health care. When a health care provider does not take the primary business as the core value of the operation and make strategic and tactical decisions based primary on costs, it decreases the consumers’ (patients) satisfaction in long run. As consumers reduce or stop purchasing goods and services from the hospital, hospital may make more cost oriented decisions and falls into a negative cycle. Eventually the hospital may face the fate of loosing business to competitors and the possibility of closing the door.
From the research, we can discuss on several findings. These findings were that the economy has been affected by health care because the government has to set aside funds to cater for people’s medical care. They are provided with facilities such as clinics. The government also provides subsidized medical costs so that they can afford. This is a positive move in the economy since the population will become productive and active. When people are healthy, they are able to contribute to the improvement of the economy. There were different methods used. When carrying out research people were interviewed and were asked questions. They gave the overview which enabled the researchers to derive the following conclusions.