Healthcare Reform 101 Summary

As a percentage of the gross domestic product, health spending has stabilized at approximately 17%. Third, if it is premature to draw conclusions about the cost effects of the ACA, it is doubly so for the quality effects of the law. The reductions in hospital-acquired conditions and Medicare readmissions since the enactment of the ACA are unprecedented and encouraging, but here again, the causes of these favorable trends are uncertain. It may be some time before we can assess the quality effects of this major new legislation. In conclusion, Health care access and insurance coverage are major factors that contributed to racial and ethnic disparities before the ACA implementation (Chen, Vargas-Bustamante, Mortensen, & Ortega, 2016).

In her assessment of the American Reinvestment & Recovery Act (ARRA), Murphy (2009) discusses how its enactment provided unprecedented funding for the advancement of health information technology (HIT) which served to promote health care reform. Electronic health records (EHRs) by extension received a boost via incentivization for appropriate use in hospitals and ambulatory settings (Murphy, 2009). The benefits of EHRs include the ability to improve the delivery and quality of nursing care, the ability to make more timely and efficient nursing care decisions for nursing, the ability to avoid errors that might harm patients and the ability to promote health and wellness for the patients (McGonigle & Mastrian, 2015). An appropriate use of EHR

One of the most significant current discussion about health care is the introduction of Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) in America. The aims are to improve the quality of health care services and expand the public insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid, so that to reduce the numbers of uninsured. As the government has increased taxes; and fines will be collected if citizens and businesses aren 't purchasing or providing any health insurance, the period of introduction and implementation, the America’s economy has resulted a big change in different aspects, such as the rate of economic growth, unemployment, government expenditure and the society influences, so it brings out the argument on “should the government repeal the act?”. Although

Other than HIPAA, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act is a major federal policy initiative that affects the healthcare information technology (HIT) in the past years. However, its policy is used to protect the EHR system from a security breach that can cause multi-million dollar fines to the company (Campus Safety Magazine, 2010). In 2009, President Obama signed HITECH Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with authority, so it can establish programs that will improve healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency using HIT (Hebda & Czar, 2013). Certainly, HITECH is one of the significant health care reforms that have a major

The purpose of the program is to ensure better care, healthier people, and smarter spending (CMS). Every program has been created under certain conditions, and Medicaid is not an outlier. When Medicaid was created in 1965, it was done so by President Lyndon B. Johnson by passing an amendment to the Social Security Act called the Medicare amendment with the

After the passage of the ACA, Minnesota was chosen to pilot a Medicaid program using ACOs to improve healthcare delivery because of the previous reforms that were made to the state’s Medicaid system. In 2008, the Minnesota state government passed the Health Care Reform Law which implemented the utilization of health homes to provide Medicaid services and a revision of the state’s quality and monitoring system of the Medicaid program (Edwards, 2013). The law was also expanded to use ACOs after the passage of the ACA, in order to provide more comprehensive care for Medicaid beneficiaries (Edwards, 2013). The use of the ACOs “forged a partnership to redesign the health care workforce and improve the coordination of the physical, behavioral, social, and economic dimensions of care” for Medicaid beneficiaries (Sandberg, Erikson, Owen, Vickery, Shimotsu, Linzer, Garrett, Johnsrud, Soderlund, & DeCubellis, 2014). To ensure the success of the program, the state also developed a safety-net program to ensure that Medicaid recipients would continue to receive quality care to meet their health care needs, if the pilot program

Perry Ashilevi, HADM 555, Fall 2016(Instructor: Scott Perryman) Reading Assignment #1: Modern Healthcare Article Topic: “Divided Over Bundled Payments” by Elizabeth Whitman, September 28, 2016. In the Modern Healthcare article “Divided Over Bundled Payments”, the author Elizabeth Whitman suggests that there is a separation between payers and providers as to the direction of bundled payment models. As a result of the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the author asserts that bundled payment is becoming more popular for value based payment in the healthcare industry. The basis for the author’s assertion is that according to the survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, it is evident that 31% of hospitals and 20% of employers have

Sepsis impacts the U.S. healthcare based on its high incidence, mortality rates, financial costs and long-term adverse effects on sepsis survivors. To reduce this impact, the rapid initiation of bundled care based on the SSC can reduce the severity of severe sepsis and septic shock thereby, reducing patient mortality and long term adverse effects. The objective of this paper is to discuss the benefits of implementing a sepsis bundle focusing on the SSC recommendations and the improved effects realized on patient outcomes and morality rates. The clinical question is as follows: In acute care adult patients, what is the effect of implementation of a sepsis bundle compared to no bundle on patient

Affordable Care Act (ACA) is comprehensive health care reform law passed by President Barack Obama on March 2010, is also named as Obamacare. This act has 3 primary goals; first, make health insurance available to more people who are in the line of the federal poverty level, second, expand the medical program to cover all adults and third, generally lower the costs of health care. The law also aims to expand private and public insurance coverage, and regulating the insurance industry. This paper discusses about some of the benefit of ACA and drawback of the act.

On March 23, 2010, the former President signed a law called the Affordable Health Care Act, also known to everyone as ObamaCare. The Affordable Care Act didn’t happen until January 1, 2014. The goal for the Affordable Health Care Act was: expanding coverage, hold insurance companies accountable, lower health care costs, guarantee more choices, and enhance the quality of care for all Americans. Medicaid is a jointly funded, Federal-State health insurance program for low-income and needy people. It also covers children who are disabled and other people who are eligible to receive federally assisted income maintenance payments.

This was the aim to be able to meet targets and cope with environmental influences resulting in a decline of the traditional postal business. The companies aim were planned to transform the business and be able to focus on the growth of parcel deliveries, as this was a result of vast improvements in the productivity. Leading the company to lower its costs in the recent years, as it is expected to be more competitive and be able to sustain revenue growth. (http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-3270365/Royal-Mail-fully-privatised-time-500-year-history-Government-divests-final-14-cent-stake.html) "Saving the Royal Mail 's postal service in the Digital age" (Richard Hooper CBE 2010, p.24). This results were the main factors of the encouragement of the change with 40% less efficiency, it has become the third most inefficient postal service within the UK functioning its services.

The other elements of legislation including age retirement, SSDI, SSI, Medicaid and Medicare help each individual for a continuous source of income and to improve their health. However, there are individual who will take advantage of these benefits and is causing damage on each program resource. Congress needs to address how to preserve the benefits for those who truly need them versus the ones who are capable of working to provide for their family. It is predicated by 2033, there will be 2.1 workers for each beneficiary. In order for Social Security to continue functioning the working population has to increase compared to the retired

The focus of the course was on showing the political economical changes affect the health care policies. President Obama has made considerable changes in the U.S. health care system by expanding the access to care to uninsured individuals. In fact, his principles for a modern health care system are as below: enabling individuals to have the right to choose their health care providers reducing the administrative costs of health care insurance companies and making it more affordable for individuals protecting families from becoming bankrupt after a medical problem planning public plans to change the lifestyle of individuals and encouraging them to follow wellness programs, and shift the focus from disease treatment to preventive

The US government currently has an annual deficit over 400 billion dollars due to having a higher budget than revenues. Healthcare takes up 25% of the federal budget totaling almost 1 trillion dollars, and is extremely inefficient in its current state. But as Americans pay more, they get less for their health care than residents of other high income countries; of 16 surveyed countries America has the shortest life expectancy for men and women, and the highest rates of mortality for newborns and children under five, as well as the highest rates of death from heart and lung disease coupled with the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases(Gayle).By incentivizing a healthy lifestyle, creating a more competitive market for health insurances,

“Quality in public health is the degree to which policies, programs, services, and research for the population increase desired health outcomes and conditions in which the population can be healthy” ("Quality Improvement in Public Health: Lessons Learned from the Multi-State Learning Collaborative"). After the terrorist attack of 2011 and the events that followed put a spot light on the abandonment groundwork that was laid for public health. The major concepts within the article regarding quality improvement in public health are what ways can we implement QI to improve our healthcare. The three major initiatives for improving healthcare through quality improvement and what studies have been done to show the success of the use of QI to improve public health care. The three major initiatives for improving healthcare through QI are Public Health Quality Forum (PHQF), Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), and Multi-State Learning Collaborative (MLC).