Issues with Quality Healthcare

Issues with Quality Healthcare

Margaret Normeshie

Dr. Cheryl Anderson

Herzing University

1/27/17

Issues with Quality Healthcare

The healthcare system in the United States is very effective and it spends more than any other country as a share of the country’s economy. It is improving on a large scale in accordance with the quality measures, specialist facilities, and life-expectancy and burden of diseases. The mortality rate has fallen over the years, reduction in infant mortality and a decline in disease burden. The quality of life and health status has also improved over the years in the United States and there is a sharp decline in the burden of the disease since 2013. The Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) have also decreased to 37% over the years. The above statistics shows that the quality of healthcare system in the United States is effective as compared to other countries.

However, United States encounters issues regarding the quality that is affecting the healthcare systems services. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, quality issues are seen in the use of healthcare services (McGinnis et al., 2013). The variation in use of services, underuse, overuse, misuse and disparities in the quality of healthcare services are some of the quality issues reflected in the healthcare systems of United States. There is a wide variation in the practice of health care in the regions and small areas that show that the health care has not evolved with the science of health care. There are millions of people who do not receive the necessary care and that increase the cost of effective interventions leading to underuse of services. There is also overuse of services that increases the cost and there is misuse of services as many people get injured during treatment and encounter premature death. There are financial barriers that hinder the high-quality health care. The cost of health care and access to health care quality through usage of data that is greatly influenced by the socio-economic factors are also some of the issues regarding quality of health care (Moses et al., 2013).

The cost crisis and inequitable payment in the health care system have led to the formation of national health care reimbursement policy by Medicare services and American Medical Association. It undervalues the financial challenges associated with the primary care management of serious patients and favoring of costly, complex and unnecessarily medical services. The United Nations National Health Care Act, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2010, The Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) are some of the health care acts in the United States (Barr, 2016). The health care industry is greatly influenced by these health care reforms. The United Nations National Health Care Act is established with an aim to provide universal single-payer health care system in the United States. Under this act, the Government of the United States would pay for most of the medical care that would reduce the dependency on private health care systems, insurance and schemes. As a result, the insurance companies would provide supplementary coverage in case of non-essential care.

In conclusion, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 2010 commonly known as Obama Act is the health care reform law in the United States. It includes affordable health care, improvement of quality of health care, transparency, assistance services, new benefits, funding, rights and protection for all Americans (Patel & Rushefsky, 2014). The Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) takes into account the payment of doctors who treat the Medicare patients and regulations related to the health insurance and incentives. It also helps to fill the funding gap in the way the doctors are paid through reimbursement by Medicare.

References

Barr, D. A. (2016). Introduction to US Health Policy: the organization, financing, and delivery of health care in America. JHU Press.

Byrd, W. M., & Clayton, L. A. (2015). An American health dilemma: Race, medicine, and health care in the United States 1900-2000 (Vol. 2). Routledge.

McGinnis, J. M., Stuckhardt, L., Saunders, R., & Smith, M. (Eds.). (2013). Best care at lower cost: the path to continuously learning health care in America. National Academies Press.

Moses, H., Matheson, D. H., Dorsey, E. R., George, B. P., Sadoff, D., & Yoshimura, S. (2013). The anatomy of health care in the United States. Jama, 310(18), 1947-1964.

National Center for Health Statistics (US. (2013). Health, United States, 2012: With special feature on emergency care.

Patel, K., & Rushefsky, M. E. (2014). Healthcare Politics and Policy in America: 2014. Routledge.