Financial Factors that Influence Health Care Today (Other (Not Listed) Sample)

Financial Factors that Influence Health Care Today
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Financial Factors that Influence Health Care Today
In the provision of healthcare, finances are essential as they aid in the meeting of healthcare related costs and acquisition of the appropriate resources. In the current world, the business of healthcare is influenced by numerous financial factors. Individual spending on the U.S. health care attains a new peak by reaching $10.345, and this is expected to rise in the future. Compared to other developed nations, the United States spends a higher percentage of the GDP in health care although the Americans continue being unhealthy. There is the identification of a connection between socio-economic status and health outcomes and the significance of the Affordable Care Act for Americans. The paper aims to explore the financial factors affecting current healthcare system, as well as discuss the financial responsibility in the practice of nursing and the American’s health care vision.
In the United States health care, personal socioeconomic status is closely linked to one’s health and health outcomes. The reason is that individuals with low income are limited from seeking for quality health care because of its associated expenses and cost. Besides, good health is related to higher income. Therefore, one’s income affects his or her capacity to acquire health care. Nonetheless, health care is a right among the Americans and the American Government needs to make an effort of seeing that all individuals are able to access health care (Abraham et al., 2011). In other words, it is the responsibility of the American Government to cater for public health care costs; and that is why there was the introduction and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Due to The Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is clear that the acquisition of quality health care in America is very expensive. Therefore, the establishment of ACA is a solution for the majority of the Americans, especially the poor and the aging people. Through ACA, it became possible for the Americans to have quality and affordable health insurance, hence the reduction of the percentage of the uninsured individuals and minimize the amount of money spent on healthcare (Alrubaiee & Alkaa'ida, 2011). Besides, ACA allows healthcare consumers to contribute to the healthcare decision-making process.
Nurses have a role to play in the provision of healthcare which has to acquire economic support (Zavras, Tsiantou, Pavi, Mylona, & Kyriopoulos, 2012). In the contemporary nursing practice, finances influence how nurses play their roles through the acquisition of better salaries, resources to offer quality health care, and meeting all healthcare-linked expenses. Therefore, in an ideal world, the health care vision for America should be based on the ability to meet the financial responsibilities associated with the provision of health care.
Funding Sources
Healthcare funds are sourced from diverse sources such as government spending, which is enhanced through the taxes collected from the citizens, non-governmental sources such as self-contribution through the out-of-pocket overheads, healthcare insurance premiums as well as the community contributions. It means that all the healthcare funding sources are linked to people’s contributions through paying taxes, and health insurance (Alrubaiee & Alkaa'ida, 2011). Therefore, Americans fund for their medical care, hence the rise in personal health care expenditures.
Reimbursement Methods
There are various ways through which the health insurance payers or the healthcare financial contributors are compensated under the healthcare reimbursement plan. For instance, the employers meet some of the health insurance charges as they make payments to their employees. This practice assists in lowering of the healthcare associated costs. There is also the method of ACA payment as well as the delivery system reforms, which assist in the repayment of the workers for their health insurance premiums. The method offers them certain health care services without being required to meet the associated costs (Zavras et al., 2012). Therefore, employees are covered when in need of medical care.
There was the introduction of value-based purchasing program whereby there is the provision of (VBP) care. This method is linked to the program of pay-for-performance since patient outcome and personal experience are factors determining what hospitals are repaid. Other methods are the Medicare initiatives, such as Obamacare and PPACA, which are aimed at working towards the improvement of the quality of healthcare and patient’s satisfaction. The provision of such benefits to the tax payer and health insurance contributors enables the hospitals to advance their performances (Smith & Hanson, 2012). There is also the implementation of Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) whereby the readmission of a patient is significantly catered for by the hospital; hence the reduction of the readmission number.
Economic Factors
The current healthcare is influenced by economic factors such as lack of enough finances to fund the hospital expenses. It is evident that lack of enough money from the diverse funding sources affects the general public and health care providers because of the poor management of hospitals. The rise in the number of uninsured individuals because of the rise in the unemployment rate affects individual’s affordability of meeting health insurance (Alrubaiee & Alkaa'ida, 2011). Consequently, the acquisition of healthcare by consumers is negatively affected.
Business Influences
The healthcare business planning tends to affect the current provision of health care in the United States. Besides, there is the rise in spending of finances in the healthcare sector whereby the healthcare service and product prices influence the growth of healthcare spending. On the other hand, the advanceme...