Seamless System of Long-Term Care (Essay Sample)

Seamless System of Long-Term Care
Name
Institution
Seamless System of Long-Term Care
Introduction
Many a time, clients experience a break in services when moving from one subsystem of healthcare to another. However, this should not be the case. Consumers of healthcare systems should be able to move from one subsystem to another without having to worry about accessibility, financing and quality. Such a system would be virtually seamless, meaning that consumers would experience a healthcare system without gaps (Pratt, 2010).
Services to Include
Traditionally, long-term care system focuses on chronic illnesses; however, little attention is paid to the different needs of the chronically ill (Mor, Leone, & Maresso, 2014). The county proposes a paradigm shift in long-term care to include a full and uniform assessment (initial and ongoing) of consumer needs. There would be one full assessment that takes into consideration an individual’s social, medical and financial needs instead of using several uncoordinated processes to determine those needs.
Efforts to prevent long-term illnesses should also be an integral part of the system. Some long-term diseases such as heart attack can significantly reduce with early prevention (Pratt, 2010). Early treatment also delays and prevents the progression of long-term diseases such as AIDS. Inclusion of "preventive gerontology" measures such as cancer-screening and bone-density tests in long-term care programs would be a priority.
Achieving Seamlessness
Every healthcare system within the county should be integrated into the system and avail clinical and financial information about its clients. That strategy would make client’s clinical and financial information accessible instantaneously at every service site (Evashwick, 2005). Integration of the several independent continuums within the county would be vital because achievement of efficiency delivery of healthcare (which is the one of the key platforms on which the county supervisor campaigned) would be virtually impossible without a coordinated system.
As discussed in another part of this paper, financing will be another aspect of focus in order to reduce financial barriers that prevent the development of a seamless healthcare system. Other barriers that prevent the provision of seamless healthcare system such as lack of coordination between agencies, as well as lack of coordination between agencies and payers, will be assessed in order to find means of eliminating such barriers.
Organizing Access
As a matter of urgency, there is a need to ensure that healthcare services are available on the basis of functional needs of each client, not for the needs of, or for the benefit of, those who pay for care (Pratt, 2010). An ideal seamless system would be one where consumers do not have to worry about the quality of the system as well as financing because the system is universal with no discernable differences in the quality of the service delivered and the cost of the service. For example, if the service required is heart surgery, the client would not have to worry about the facility attended because the service provided as well as the price would be the same across all the facilities within the county. Therefore, uniformity of services across facilities is one of the things that are central to the system. In addition, services should be available on the basis of functional needs of the clients instead of who will pay for the services delivered.
Financing
Publicly funded long-term healthcare systems such as Medicaid and Medicare are overstretched, and they would be badly affected in the future unless alternative, innovative ways of funding are sought. However, the burden should not be left to the consumers only. While private Long-term care insurance is still available with much coverage and payment options, not very many consumers have rushed to purchase it (Pratt, 2010).
Several reasons explain that disparity. One, the young adult and middle-aged populations face many financial demands. As a result, they have pressing needs to meet other than securing protection against something that might happen in the distant future or might not happen at all. For now, meeting daily needs and putting kids through school is much more important than something far off as long-term care (Pratt, 2010).
Given that background, it is crucial to explore public/private partnerships as an alternative means of ensuring universal access to services. Such an initiative should be desi...