The Cost Of Health Care

The high cost of healthcare continues to rise and many in the United States are optimistic for health information technology to reduce and improve our current situation. Health IT encompasses a broad array of new technologies designed to manage and share health-related information. When properly implemented, these systems can help coordinate patient care, reduce medical errors, and improve administrative efficiency. Therefore, implementing a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) will help the National Health Information Network (NHIN) achieve their goals in improving quality of care for the citizens of the United States. Thus, in order for the health IT to deliver on its promise, several obstacles must be overcome.

It is no secret that the cost of American healthcare is becoming increasingly more expensive. However, the issue of the rising cost of healthcare and its severity needs to be recognized as a major problem. Health prices are steadily increasing in the United States, and there is no sign of it stopping. Since 1970, spending on American health care has grown 9.8%, which is a rate that is growing faster than the economy (“New Technology”.) Furthermore, health insurance premiums are also increasing at a rate five times faster than American salaries, which makes it difficult for families to afford health care coverage (Zuckerman 28). Therefore, it has become an obligation to address why the cost of American health care is soaring and to seek out a solution to lower the cost. Many would jump to the conclusion that the United States simply charges too much for their medical services, but there are deeper influences that need to be analyzed. The causes of the rising cost of health care are people not using preventive health care, the development of modern technology, and the treatments being overprescribed. A possible solution is to have preventive health care services available in clinics of low-income areas.

The health care system is one of the largest industries in the nation. It employs nearly twelve and a half million people. Even though this many people are employed by health care systems, there is little to no competition between the many different systems. This results in the cost being whatever the system wants. People who are ill or

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.

The increase of expenses - As politicians continue their dissension amongst each other, the situation is worsening in our healthcare system. According to the World Health Organization, to achieve universal health coverage, countries need a financial system that enables people access to all types of health services without incurring financial hardship (Carrin, Mathauer, Xu, & Evans, 2011). This idea would be the foundation of innovative ideas that the U.S. could reform its healthcare system, but too many ideas are sabotaging any valid efforts. In the mean time, the U.S. healthcare system continues to deal with issues such as the increasing uninsured Americans (over 49 million), expensive administrative procedures and the inability to measure the accuracy of quality of care, access of care, and the increasing healthcare spending and financing that limit our ability to efficient utilize resources.

The intended audience for this argument is any individual who provides or receives health care in America. This paper can also be read and understood by anyone who is curious about the effects of health care costs on Americans.

While there has been large media coverage about the insurance impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there has been a smaller amount discussed of the law’s changes to provider reimbursement policy, reforms to the delivery system, and investments in programs to improve the quality of care and constrain long-run growth in health care costs. And yet, the elements included in the ACA directed at cost and quality is possible to affect the practice of care for nearly every provider across the country. Although cost containment policies and initiatives are largely applied through federal health programs which including Medicare and Medicaid; cost containment in these programs has important cost-saving spillover effects to private health care markets through changes in health care practices and pricing across sectors of care.

Moreover, we see that some providers are focusing on what providers do and how they get reimbursed rather than what the patient needs, which is a focus that does not prioritize quality of care and therefore does not align with the Triple Aim framework. The problem presented regarding this matter is that the health care system lacks a patient-focused care of medical conditions that puts patients and their health needs first. For example, when we think of provider reimbursement, it is not in the patient’s best interest for the system to only have a simple fee-for-service structure. A structure like this one will only lead to an increase of health care expenses. Also, it fails to incentivize high-value service, which also does not align with the Triple Aim framework health care providers should go by. It is very crucial for the health care system in the United Stated to find a better balance between medical groups reimbursement and patients needs in order to reduce the risk of overutilization.

The cost of health explains almost half of the budgets of the state from financing the Medicaid program to providing health care for the employees of the state and other less qualified population like the prisoners (Vanderbeaux, 2014). In America, thousands upon thousands of decisions concerning health care are made by State legislatures every year (Vanderbeaux, 2014). Some of those decisions involve how best to provide appropriate care more efficiently, and deciding on what age group of patients needs to be immunized (Vanderbeaux, 2014).

Reasons why health care costs are high and continue to increase includes the rate of growth of health care spending continuing to significantly outpace the rate of GDP growth, which means medical costs increases outpace inflation. Furthermore, healthcare costs are still an issue is because of lack of well-developed competitive markets. People do not have the option to directly pay for the health care cost, therefore, they are disconnected from making informed decisions about their health care costs. In addition, patients not being able to be the central actors in the medical marketplace continues to make this topic an issue. Moreover, patients and market places are not the center stage, however, if these two influence are given more focus, costs of health care can get under

There are many factors that currently impact the increasing cost of health care. According to the Ginsburg et al. (2012), the United States spent approximately $2.6 trillion dollars on health care in 2010, a number which is 9-11% greater than other nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. Factors that impact the increasing cost include aging populations, rise of chronic disease, improper lifestyle factors, advances in technology, and burdens on providers and patients (Ginsburg et al., 2012).

In the past, health care costs has been between 1% and 2.25%, greater than the potential gross domestic product (GDP) (Congressional budget office, 2013).

The US prides to be one of the largest economies in the world. Even in terms of health expenditure, it has the highest healthcare expenditure. However, the US lies among the most developed nations that do not provide healthcare for all people. It is known that healthy people cause less costs to the economy when compared to sick people. The issue of the healthcare costs is one of the significant challenges that are facing the US healthcare system. However, there are a lot of efforts that are being made, in a bid to cut the costs of healthcare in the US system.

The cost of medical treatment has increased dramatically, placing more focus on the significance of the doctor’s actions about what treatment suits the patient the best. Hall and Schneider ( 2008) found that the medical field is highly impacted by money. It is impacted by money creating a place where uninsured patients pay one third to one half more than patients who are insured. They still express that having access to health care is important by stating that, “ Still, professional ethics should encourage physicians to five patients in economic trouble at least the benefit of the lowest rate they accept from an established payer” (p.1257) Having access to basic health allows patients to be wise about their options in medicine. Hall and Schneider explain “Since the early 1990s, hospital list prices have risen almost 3 times more than their cost, and their markups over cost have more than doubled from 74% to 164%” (p.1259). The increases in prices may stop a patient from receiving a treatment for an illness. For the patients who ultimately do have to get the treatment it is extremely important to get a treatment that has the

The existing costing methodology focuses only on the cost of units like departments or particular process affecting the quality of service and making the service expensive (Oklu et al, 2015). Furthermore without right understanding and recognition of cost incurred for the service it remains Herculean’s task to constrain healthcare spending. To change this dismal scenario we do not require medical science or an astronomical discovery, all we need is an efficient costing technique (Kaplan and Porter, 2011). The accurate costing system would account for the total costs for the resources utilised by the patient and not at department level.