The Affordable Care Act

1160 Words5 Pages
Over the past fifty years, the method in which healthcare services are funded has gone through significant changes. The country has seen the expansion of insurance from paying medical bills for hospital stays, to the creation of managed care, and the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While the process has not been without challenges, healthcare administrators must continue to analyze past funding systems to understand the oversights and misinterpretations to prevent complications in the future. This paper will investigate fee-for-service practices and how these practices have progressed to uncontrolled utilization. Before the 1970’s, the main method in which healthcare services were financed was through a fee-for-service system.…show more content…
One area that has contributed to the rise of healthcare costs are the varieties of healthcare services offered to the patient. Competition between providers has caused physicians and hospitals to offer the most current healthcare technologies and modern, eye-catching settings in order to attract and retain clients (Shi & Singh, 2015). Reimbursements for costly procedures and hospital services have been compensated at a higher rate which has also supported the expansion of hospital and specialty procedure settings (Schroeder & Frist, 2013). Renovations of the physical settings and the acquisition of expensive technologies have elevated healthcare services prices to encompass the additional costs of providing high technical services and attracting clients and cause the over-utilization of expensive treatments. Another factor that has contributed to the over-utilization and increased treatment charges is the fact that providers set the prices for services. Patients were free to seek any type of healthcare services that they thought they required for their well-being, while providers set the costs for each service that was billed to indemnity insurance companies (Shi & Singh, 2015). Insurance companies had little control on the types of services that the patient received and prices billed for each service. The fee-for-service model encourages excessive and unwarranted procedures and offers no incentives to utilize economical services
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