Wellness: Preventative Measures To Decrease Healthcare Cost

The movie fire escape emphasizes that America has the most expensive health care system in the world but is not one of the best in regards to healthcare outcomes and life expectancy. It spends more than what the whole world all together spends on pharmaceutical industry. 75% of the 2.7 trillion dollars were spent on treating preventable diseases which indicate that US health care is more focused towards disease management than prevention. The movie makes a point that there are frequent readmissions and 80% of health care budget goes towards these 20% patients who are frequently readmitted to the hospital due to an existing chronic condition. Health care professionals are paid on the basis of number of procedures carried out on the patient rather than their health outcome. So the focus is not on curing the disease by eliminating the risk factors but merely managing the disease and looking for quick fixes. That is how patients want it too. They want to be cured right away with a pill or surgery but are not really interested in learning the long term solutions and preventative measures.

The submissions for this assignment are posts in the assignment's discussion. Below are the discussion posts for Jessica Esparza, or you can view the full discussion.

The United States healthcare system has undergone a wide variety of changes over the past few years. As the overall health of its citizens continues to deteriorate and people live longer, certain aspects of healthcare are costing an increasingly large portion of the healthcare budget. Problems such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and substance abuse have become the most pressing issues facing healthcare providers today.

Conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes account for 75% of health care spending in the United States and (cdc.gov). However, many of these chronic conditions are preventable with proper preventative screenings and care. The passage of the Affordable Care and the expansion of Medicaid increased the number of preventative care services available to Medicaid beneficiaries, however there are still many barriers preventing people from getting proper care. This policy paper analyzes possible options to improve access to preventative health services and then provides recommendations. This policy brief is targeted towards the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid who administer the Medicaid program as well as state agencies that regulate the Medicaid program in each state. The CMS has the power to help prevent diseases in a large population of people and this brief will argue why it is their responsibility to do so. The purpose of this brief is that Medicaid administrators will realize the gaps in coverage and implement reforms to help some of the most high risk people in the United States.

As described in the application, the culmination of the capstone course requires completion of a community health promotion-prevention plan. Each student will analyze data obtained from a community assessment, and identify health problems of a particular community, or group at-risk. The health promotion-prevention plan will address the identified problems and needs of the aggregate. The student will disseminate findings from their capstone experience in the form of a paper and electronic poster presentation.

We are lucky enough that we are located in an affluent area, so we don’t see the volume of economically disadvantaged that our sister hospitals downtown experience. But, there’s still plenty of people that come to us and need help; I would say the two biggest populations I deal with in this area are Hispanic immigrants and the elderly. Often what I am seeing with the elderly population are uncontrolled chronic conditions, like heart disease and diabetes, and then they end up here at the hospital with complications. Sadly, several of these cases could be prevented with proper care and medication, but the problem is many of them can’t afford their prescriptions or don’t understand the importance of taking them on a regular basis. (N. Peacock, personal communication,

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law. This was the most significant piece of legislation since Medicare and Medicaid passed in 1965.1 This health care reform is intended to expand access to quality and affordable care for all Americans. It is also intended to address the role of public programs, efficiency of health care and prevention of chronic diseases and improving public health to name a few.

fourths of that spent directed at treating chronic diseases in 2006 (Goetzel, 2009). Poor health habits are a contributing factor to chronic diseases, which could be decreased if health habits are improved. Overall, the United States should spend more money on preventative care that would decrease chronic diseases and illnesses. Therefore, the cost of treating chronic illnesses would decrease. As important as managing national spending and funding is, the most important factor is the overall health of Americans. Providing preventative care that varies between racial and ethnic groups does not create a healthier society, but a society with more chronic illness and higher medical bills for its citizens.

Finally, by testing a preventative health care strategy would prove to be beneficial in the long term basis, generally simply due to the need for the public to promote the benefits of feeling fit and being healthy. “The Gale Group (2001) reports as a preventative measure for good health, many organizations or institutions have designed programs that inform the public or specific persons with specific problems about information that will benefit that person or persons. Preventative measures are for diabetes, heart problems, cancer, and many other focused subjects. According to the American Dietetic Association, current interest in health promotion in the United States involves disease prevention and the problem of obesity. Health promotion is

Fitness and wellness are related to the prevalence of certain diseases (Fair, 2011). Most diseases that are strongly associated with risk factors or behaviors are preventable (Bezner, 2015). These diseases when not prevented may lead to decreased quality of life, disability and even death. It is better to prevent the occurrence of certain diseases by addressing modifiable risk factors, than to wait for the patient to suffer the consequences before we take action. Health promotion through prevention and wellness is therefore a vital component of health care system in any community. Bezner (2015) defined health promotion as the process of empowering a person to change his lifestyle and behavior, with the purpose of improving the overall health of people living in the community. According to Bezner (2015) physical therapists are ideal messengers and role models in health promotion and wellness. In line with this, physical therapists should participate in creating a health promotion initiative for the community to decrease health care costs, decrease mortality and to alleviate the risk of having chronic diseases (McGinnis, Williams-Russo, & Knickman, 2002). One example of a health promotion initiative that can be created by physical therapists is a wellness and prevention program for the elderly.

The progress of health care delivering towards improvement, prevention and wellness in the United States is part of the role of the health care reform which is very is very. Many health problems and issues are facing the health care industry with the influx of patient into the health care system and shortages of health care providers to render adequate and quality care. In the healthcare arena, preventive care is increasing in popularity. A large percentage of the patient population is uninsured and the costs associated with chronic disease are extreme, therefore preventive care initiatives are essential, which makes it health care reform so important and needs urgent action. Preventative health care has turn out to be a progressively standard in the health care sector. With a diversity of methods to educate populations and prevent illnesses, this type of health care works to improve the overall wellness of Americans. Preventative health care enlightens populations, promotes healthy lifestyles and provides early treatment for illnesses. In the industry, the emergence of health care reform and an increased number of individuals suffering

I know hospitals are working to try to implement programs that will help keep cost down. Hospitals are working to focus on wellness, better manage chronic disease, speed adoption of information technology, improve how care is delivered to each patient, increase transparency of hospital quality and better understand and reduce variation in care. With the wellness programs helps people learn how to take care of themselves by demonstrating how eat better and how to increase the amount of exercise in their daily routine. I personally know that sense I have learned how to eat better and what exercise I can do what to help me live a healthier life. As far as, helping to better manage the chronic diseases hospitals are more involved in research to better understand on how to manage the care and they are working towards what are some possible treatments to help people cope a little better. Hospitals also trying keep up with new technology that will to better treat their patients. With the new technology they are able to detect possible problems before the problems get a chance to really do damage. Some of the new technology also allows doctors know what type of medicines that patients have had prior to the current situations. I have noticed that the hospitals are taking a bigger interest in training the staff to better care for the patients. They are offering more training on giving care; they are also teaching

There will be five dimensions explained under this topic. Which are: Financial dimension, physical dimension, intellectual dimension, emotional dimension and social dimension. Wellness is substantially more than only physical wellbeing, activity or sustenance. It is the full coordination of conditions of these five dimensions.

Unfortunately, actual rates of delivery of preventive health care services in the clinical setting remain low (Ruffin, M.T, 2000). The most common barriers identified are shortage of time, patient refusal to discuss about certain services, poor patient compliance, and lack of physician training in providing certain preventive services (Burack, 1989) (Kottke TE, 1993) (Yarnall, 2003). Yet, how best to deliver preventive health measures in primary care continues to be debated. For example, there is a lack of consensus with regard to the relative merits of one type of office visit versus the other. Office visits may generally be divided into two categories: separate, stand-alone preventive health appointments (also called “wellness visits”) or

Physical, emotional, intellectual, interpersonal, spiritual, and environmental wellness are all considered the six dimensions of wellness with occupational wellness being the possible seventh. But what are these exactly? And how do they apply to me and my health and wellness?