Drastic Changes in the US Health Care System

Twenty-first century health care system in United States is not only complex, but also profoundly different from "what it used to be." The changes are numerous and represent the major shifts involved in moving from protection and delivery plan, based primarily on what the patient wanted, to a skeptically managed healthcare system. The American health care system has seen drastic changes within couple generations and it continues to evolve.
Over the years the medical field has always brought together the best and brightest of society to help those in need. From treating cancer and delivering babies to dealing with heart attacks, doctors have developed technology and improved techniques. The three main changes that are revolutionizing the medical field are electronic medical records, population science and clinical practice guidelines. With the help of advanced technology, evaluating patients on a large scale, physicians can view the death rate, life span and frequency of illness throughout the healthcare system. On an individual basis, the physician can treat an illness. When the entire population is considered, issues such as cancer, heart disease and obesity are a growing epidemic. Population science can allow doctors to look at a large-scale way to cure these epidemics instead of just treating an individual. These epidemiological principles are now used in clinical studies to make the evaluation of medical procedures better.
As the field of healthcare has changed, new diseases and disorders have developed. It is impossible for one doctor to know how to recognize and treat every disease in the world. With evidence-based guidelines, they can come close. These guidelines may not have a perfect success rate, but they can make diagnosing illness easier.
Healthcare professionals associated with medical billing and coding know the progress the technology has made so far. In the last few decades, medical billing and coding has switched from being a paper-based system to a computerized format. Under HIPAA laws, medical practitioners had to develop new software in order to send out electronic bills. With the advent of electronic medical records (EMR), with one touch of a button, doctors, Nurse Practitioners and PAs can gain access to all the care a patient has ever received from every healthcare facility the patients visited previously and can figure out possible illnesses. This enables statistical documentation of the population as a whole as well. EMR can also make the healthcare system more transparent and allow integration with reimbursement data. As the healthcare system changes, this will prevent unnecessary costs and make it easier to get the reimbursements needed to treat a patient.