Combating Healthcare Disparities

Combating Healthcare Disparities

Disparities in healthcare are a real and urgent problem in our nation. There is indisputable data supporting the fact that disparities exist not only across different racial groups, but also across the cultural and economic stratification of our society. Moreover, there is even data showing disparities among each of these respective groups along gender lines. So what can be done about these disparities to assure that all patients receive equal and adequate care? Well, there are certainly many political and governmental changes or modifications that would go a long way towards narrowing the gaps in healthcare, but such changes are beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, I will focus on the steps that I, and all of my colleagues, can take independently to attempt to eliminate healthcare disparities in our own practice.

There are countless contributing factors that might lead to disparate care in the setting of private practice. Aside from disparities that might arise from actual medical decisions made by the physician, there are many more, often quite subtle, factors which play just as important a role in contributing to disparate care. For instance, factors such as the choice of location for practice, billing and payment policies, and the hiring and training of staff, all play a significant role in either introducing or eliminating healthcare disparities. As we are primarily interested in eliminating the preexisting disparities in the system, this paper will attempt to offer practical, yet useful, suggestions of ways to decrease or, preferentially, eliminate disparities caused by each of the above contributing factors.

The first, and most obvious, cause of healthcare disparities is actu...

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... must realize that medical education varies dramatically from institution to institution and not all healthcare workers are aware of and/or have been educated about the disparities in our healthcare system and their causes. In this case, it is the responsibility of the providers who have been educated to, in turn, educate their colleagues and peers about the issue. A provider who has been educated about the problem, yet does nothing to help resolve it, has, in effect, wasted their education and knowledge. It is for precisely this reason that I will do my very best to assure that all of my coworkers and certainly my staff are educated about the issue and are aware of the possible ways to combat the disparities in care. It is only through education and awareness that these disparities can be resolved and I intend on doing my part to see that they are, indeed, resolved.