Health care challenges are among the most important issues to solve at the governmental level. Although the U.S. spends more money on healthcare than any other country in the world, there is still a range of problems that need to be addressed. In the past decade, the Affordable Care Act has significantly improved health care in the USA. However, there are some reform factors that future health care workers and leaders will have to focus on, and I believe that two most important ones are educating patients and creating a bundled payment system.
First, educating patients is an essential element of ensuring their wellbeing and decreasing readmission rate. It is important to communicate to patients that their health is “as much their responsibility as it is any physician’s” (GCU Academics, 2013). Clinicians have to discuss conditions and standards of health maintenance with all patients, because that will improve the patients’ sense of self-efficacy. That, in turn, can only be achieved by improving communication between patients and physicians.
Second, within a value-based payment, or a bundled payment system, the care is coordinated. Previously, patients had to pay for care in each individual facility they were treated, and that was how the payment mechanisms worked (GCU Academics, 2013). Within the bundled payment system, there will only be post-acute payments, and the patients will be provided with coordinated care for the right amount of time. Therefore, this system needs to be enhanced and implemented in more health care institutions of the future.
In addition, managed care organisations have played a significant role in implementing value-based payment reforms. That is why I believe that, adhering to MCO standards, health care facilities of the future will benefit enormously. Because managed care reduces the cost of care, there is a decrease in national care expenditures as well (Heaton & Tadi, 2021). It also makes it easier to provide medical services to the members of MCO at affordable cost.
References
GCU Academics. (2013). Introduction – part 1. YouTube.
GCU Academics. (2013). Part 4. YouTube.
Heaton, J., & Tadi, P. (2021). Managed care organization. National Center for Biotechnology Information.