Safety Net Hospitals And The United States Health Care System

As Americans we should all be afforded access to healthcare. Access to healthcare is an individual right according to the human rights amendment. The human right to health guarantees a system of health protection for all. The human right to health means that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medical services, sanitation, adequate food, decent housing, healthy working conditions and a clean environment (What is the Human Right to Health and Health Care, 2015). However there are strengths and weaknesses to every healthcare system and the U.S. Healthcare system is not exempt. I plan to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the U. S. Healthcare system (What is the Human Right to Health and Health Care, 2015).

Another health care provider service that is important to individuals is acute care. Acute care provides of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_care). Acute care services are generally delivered by teams of health care professionals from a range of medical and surgical specialties. Acute care may require a stay in a hospital emergency department, ambulatory surgery center, urgent care center or other short-term stay facility, along with the assistance of diagnostic services, surgery, or follow-up outpatient care in the community. Hospital-based acute inpatient care typically has the goal of discharging patients as soon as they are deemed healthy and stable. Acute care settings include but are not limited to: emergency department, intensive care, coronary care, cardiology, neonatal intensive care, and many general areas where the patient could become acutely unwell and require stabilization and transfer to another higher dependency unit for further treatment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_care). An individual can be treated whether they ability to afford treatment or not due to a federal law known as the Emergency

The lack of health insurance reached began to become a serious issue in the mid-1990’s reaching a crisis level in the 2000’s. Individuals without insurance turned to emergency rooms across the country to obtain care routine care, turning emergency departments into primary care facilities. In many instances, people who presented at emergency rooms for treatment could not be turned away due to various health and safety regulations; therefore, patients were seen without the ability to pay often leaving the hospitals with millions of dollars in uncollectable debt, subsequently leading to the insolvency of hundreds of hospitals across the United States.

The first characteristic of the US health care system is that there is no central governing agency which allows for little integration and coordination. While the government has a great influence on the health care system, the system is mostly controlled through private hands. The system is financed publically and privately creating a variety of payments and delivery unlike centrally controlled healthcare systems in other developed countries. The US system is more complex and less manageable than centrally controlled health care systems, which makes it more expensive. The second characteristic of the US health care system is that it is technology driven and focuses on acute care. With more usage of high technology,

Emergency room over utilization is one of the leading causes of today’s ever increasing healthcare costs. The majority of the patients seen in emergency rooms across the nation are Medicaid recipients, for non-emergent reasons. The federal government initiated Medicaid Managed Care programs to offer better healthcare delivery, adequately compensate providers and reduce healthcare costs. Has Medicaid Managed Care addressed the issues and solved the problem? The answer is ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

According to the American Hospital Association the cost of equipment, services, and information services has risen drastically. A huge problem for hospitals now is that there has been an enormous increase in patients who have Medicare or Medicaid. The Hospital Association states that “60% of all admissions. Neither program fully reimburses the cost of hospital care.” Not only is the hospital not getting paid the full amount through the health insurance, but they have also seen a jump in people who do not have insurance and cannot pay for their hospital expenses this averages out to about six percent of hospital expenses. Hospitals must assume these costs as a part of their charity pay. These costs are then calculated and increase the costs of health care for people who pay for it, in order to cover these costs.

Some people say America has the best health care system in the nation, is this

There are providers, of public hospitals community and rural health centers, and local health department considered to be safety net providers that service the uninsured. But the result of increased demand has caused limited capacity and decreased treatment options due to eroding finances (KFF, 2013). In order to improve the well beings of Americans, it is imperative to establish a health care policy that will deliver comprehensive coverage for all.

The primary care safety net, which is the first-line of defense, is provided by these 3 cohorts, and while 2/3 of their patients are uninsured – it only represents 8% of the total uninsured population in the area. Expansion is a huge need here.

In the current U.S. system the free market prevails and companies, in this case, major insurance providers “compete” for business. This competitive business approach should in theory drive costs down. For some reason, however, an argument can be made that it has produced the opposite result in profiteering. The nation’s largest insurer, UnitedHealth, boasted over a 10 percent revenue increase in 2013 according to Forbes (2013). Health insurance affordability contributes to the disparity in access to health care, as evidenced by the fact that there are millions that are still uncovered. A greater majority of certain minorities lack both health insurance and the financial resource to seek out either health care or insurance. While insurance companies reap huge profits the percent of private sector companies offering health insurance has dropped to less than 50 percent (Kaiser, 2013). There is decidedly a lack of coordination of care for this at risk population as well, since treatment is rendered sporadically and with continuously changing providers. The last major challenge is that of improving the quality of health care. According to a 2010 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (OIG), an estimated 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stay and an additional 13.5 percent experienced a temporary

One of the primary goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to provide affordable health care coverage and increase access to affordable health care to the community. Unfortunately, since the passage of the ACA, while there has been an increase in the number of people with health care coverage, those same people do not necessarily have access to affordable health care. Currently, the public views the Emergency Department (ED) as a safety net by the community it serves; as demonstrated by the increasing number of people who continue to seek treatment in the ED for non-urgent problems. Utilization of the ED for non-urgent care contributes to the rising costs of healthcare as treatment in this setting can be upwards of three times the cost

Everyone has their own views on what they think the United States healthcare system should consist of. Consequently, the healthcare system has been flawed for many years and does not plan to change anytime soon. According to Luft (2006), “rapid and wide-reaching technological innovation, the ready access to care for the insured, and clinical and patient autonomy” (p.1). These are some of the strengths the US healthcare system are proficient in providing. In contrast, the weaknesses of the healthcare system outweigh the system’s strengths. Luft (2006) examined and acknowledged the following:

With many living in poverty and on unemployment whether by choice or due to lack of insurance, the crime rates rise also leading to risky behaviors. These risky behaviors sometimes end up leading to the emergency room settings. This increases the cost of health care with no primary care physician available.

Non-Profit hospitals can often assist potential patients to care for the uninsured in their community (Kovner & Knickman, 2008).

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).