The topic of health care policy has been at the center stage of U.S. politics for almost a decade now, but since the 1990’s a form of health care coverage called managed care has been how millions of patients receive care. Managed care plans are contracts between health care providers and medical facilities with the aim of providing care to patients at reduced costs. These plans have taken much of the decision making regarding patient’s health from the doctors and placed it in the hands of the insurance companies who have progressively restricted the amount of treatments and medical services they cover. In 2011 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a six-state study to quantify the denial rate of prescribed treatments for patients
A Health care system of any country is an important consideration for the purposes of the overall development. One of the most important and essential feature of the human body is the health and the systems. In the same manner, proper management is also necessary. Furthermore, all the countries of the world have few targets and achievements to be made. On the other hand, it should also be noted down that, economic development and social welfare the two most are the two important factors. Economic welfare is connected with the increase in the wealth of the people at large (Niles, 2011).
Managed care was established in order to manage health care cost, utilization, and quality (Kongstvedt, 2015). In managed care, health insurance is provided through HMO, PPO, and other types of managed care. It has the potential to reduced health care spending and improved the quality of care. However, despite of its success in improving the quality of care through preventive health care services, chronic disease management program, and so forth, many physicians are reluctant to be part of the managed care environment. Some of the reasons are the impact of managed care to physician’s income and autonomy. Under managed care, insurers have decreased the fees paid to physicians. There are different ways how managed care organizations control costs. One of this is through selective contracting with health care providers and hospitals to lower costs. In selective contracting, health care providers agreed to accept lower prices in exchanged for guaranteed volume of patients under managed care plan (Culyer, 2014). This paper will discuss more issues and trends in Managed Care Organizations such as the rise of Medicaid Managed Care spending, the new Medicaid Managed care Rule, and the collaboration of Managed Care Organizations and Accountable Care Organizations to reduce health care spending and improve efficiency of care.
Healthcare in the United States has reached a level of complexity which has perplexed Presidents, Congressional members and private industry for over a century (Palmer, 1999). While the healthcare system has evolved over the last century, policy decisions which have attempted to effectuate changes to cost, quality and access have been
At one point, managed care was the viewed as a resourceful tool in efforts to help assist employee, physicians and hospitals with quality health care, while controlling the cost of medical care in the United States. Over the past 30 years, managed care has been in the limelight of health insurance, as a dictator of how it will pay for medical bills. There have been many factors playing a role with managed care over the years. For example, due to the slim selection of options that are available with physicians in rural areas, and limited physicians to choose from, does this compromise the quality of care of each member or does this cut off services for members
The health care system in the United States has been growing and changing for years and will continue to do so for years to come. The one constant in the Unite States health care system is change and evolution through evaluations of those changes. If there had not been unrest with the level and provisions of care in the early 1970s Managed Care may have never been introduced. President Nixon signed legislation in 1973 termed, Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) Act of 1973. This pivotal event in the health care system allowed for a change from the fee for service model to a comprehensive range of medical or health
The dissatisfaction with managed care for some consumers has resulted in the change of some insurance plans altogether. "Significant numbers of health plans have reduced their reliance on managed care tools at a time when health insurance premiums have returned to double digit rates of growth in many markets. Faced with fewer instruments for curbing utilization and constraining provider payments, health plans have attempted to mitigate premium growth by shifting costs to consumers. These developments promise to lighten the administrative and financial burdens that managed care has imposes on physicians and hospitals, while leading consumers to
In an attempt to understand the impact of managed care in the U.S, I look at the most commonly expressed complaints against the organization. In a survey of consumers, 60% said that managed care had not made a difference in health care cost or had actually been the cause of the increase of health care cost. Managed care has had an impact on slowing the rates of growth in the costs of two major health care producers: hospitals and physicians. Little evidence has suggested that the current reimbursement are inadequate to the care provided. The quality of care is a highly debated issue. Physicians are concerned that the quality of care in managed care organizations may reflect the loss of professional autonomy through pre-authorization procedures.
Universal Health care has been the topic of discussion among politicians and Americans today and has shown zero signs of slowing down in the future. The United States is considered one of the very few countries that spends an extensive amount of money on healthcare yet people are still struggling to receive care that’s needed and dying at a alarming rate due to the fact that they cannot afford insurance coverage for themselves and their families. In March of 2010 President Barack Obama implemented the Affordable Care Act, providing millions of Americans who previously did not have health insurance the ability to acquire and purchase premiums, however there are still some serous issues surrounding its implementation.” While the president
Medicaid-focused managed care has become progressively imperative to state Medicaid organizations. With healthcare reform and the enactment of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, Medicaid will possibly be the main insurer for increasing coverage to millions of low-income, uninsured Americans. Medicaid, a government funded health insurance plan overseen by the state, has supplied coverage for people with disabilities, children, pregnant women, seniors, and the indigent. Managed care plans have aimed to contract with healthcare providers and provide coverage at reduced costs (Smith & Coustasse, 2014). The ACA has helped people become eligible for Medicaid who otherwise would not be able to afford health insurance. There will be more equality between genders, before ACA, the majority of beneficiaries were female. Even though ACA has helped more people become eligible for Medicaid, there are also challenges that have risen due to this as well. The focus of this paper is on the challenges regarding Medicaid managed care and how they can be resolved. The first area discussed will be the history behind Medicaid. Then move on to the challenges of the Medicaid Managed Care Program and how they can be resolved as well as the possible solutions.
In today’s day and age, American households can all agree that health insurance is not a luxury, but a necessity. Without it, costs of emergency room visits and prescription medicines can be financially devastating. However, in the past many families and individuals have taken the risk of not being insured due to the high cost of the insurance itself. To attempt to reform this unfair system, the Obama administration signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. The law, coined “Obamacare,” has received much opposition due to its expansion government programs and increase in spending. It brings to question how much the government should be involved in an area that for the majority of America’s history, has been
The U.S. health care system consumes a huge amount of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, and is a massive system that provides essential and world-class care to millions of people (Niles, 2016). As a result of this huge burden of cost associated with it, the U.S. healthcare system has been critiqued, and has played a major role in sparking debates about changes to the way the U.S. healthcare system is run and organized. Thus, healthcare has been on the forefront of many American and politician minds over the last decade and beyond, and many proposals and attempts have been made to change and adapt the complex and influential U.S. healthcare system. One such attempt, that brought about incredibly influential change to the U.S. healthcare
One of the greatest changes in healthcare in the past ten years has been the rise of managed care, much to the displeasure of many patients and physicians alike. Managed care arose out of concern about spiraling healthcare costs and was designed to encourage physicians to give patients treatments that were cost-effective out of their own financial interests. "The consumer strategy was directed at imposing some barriers to use by levying various forms of co-insurance. The most common approaches used either deductibles (where the consumer paid the first portion of the bill a technique familiar in other types of insurance) or co-payments (where the consumer paid a portion of the bill and the insurance company the rest) or a combination of both' (Kane et al 1994). Managed care has given health insurance companies an increasingly significant voice in how treatment is administered and allocated. Managed care has proliferated in the past decade despite considerable criticism of the practice of 'nickel and diming' patients as well as the considerable bureaucratic red tape it is has generated. Also, research indicates that healthy, well-insured patients tend to over-consume care without meaningful co-pays but poorer, sicker patients can be deterred even by moderate co-payments and suffer negative health consequences (Kane et al 1994). However, managed care has not gone away and is a reality that all healthcare
The purpose of this paper broadly is to give an overview of Obamacare, highlighting its most important features, and core elements of the debate surrounding health care reform in the United States. In order to better achieve this, this paper is separated into sections that assist in organizing the complex concept of health care legislation and more specifically, Obamacare. The first sections address the reasons that President Barack Obama thought it necessary to take on health care reform, despite its complexity and difficulty to accomplish. Next, the paper details exactly what Obamacare mandates as a piece of legislation, illustrating how the Obama administration sought to solve the nation’s health care issues with the bill’s provisions. Then the paper turns to the debate surrounding Obamacare, citing common arguments from both the liberal and conservative side about the merits of Obamacare and its effect on the economy and the United States as a whole. The paper concludes with a summary of the bill’s progress, noting where Obamacare has accomplished its intended goals and where it has fallen short.
Critics believe that the present functioning of managed-care is degenerative to health care. Managed-care firms control costs by requiring patients to use a “network” of approved doctors and hospitals, and by reviewing the actions of doctors. Patients have to pay more to visit a doctor who does not participate in the “network.” Managed-care firms second-guess doctors, considering only the costs. Patients are often prevented from visiting specialists to reduce costs. A managed-care company might insist that its doctors prescribe inexpensive generic drugs instead of commercial products. Many patients must, also, receive the insurer’s approval before undergoing treatments or operations. HMOs have been criticized for refusing to pay when a patient goes
There is an ongoing debate regarding the potency of the new health care reform—Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—from the outset of its proposal. Many attempts had been presented in the past years but the root of the issue remains prevalent today, that there is a lack of quality in its delivery and the cost of care is continuously increasing beyond national economic edges. In this manuscript, we will discuss several factors that can positively sway the long-term significance, impact, and structure of the United States health care system. Many are wondering whether the Universal Coverage, to which will give more control and