The United States healthcare system can be regarded as offering one of the best medical services in the world, but, it is complex and difficult to navigate and often very expensive. Even though the U.S healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, it has consistently underperformed on most dimensions of healthcare performance relative to other developed nations (Davis, Stremikis, Squires, & Schoen, 2014). The private sector stakeholders play a major role in the U.S health-care system, particularly in the health insurance system while the federal government 's major health insurance programs centered on Medicare and Medicaid. Ironically, both public and private payers get health-care services from providers whose services are regulated This implies that a significant percentage of the population were without any form of health insurance coverage. Regardless of the type of health insurance coverage, medical services are not entirely free as consumers may be expected to bear some direct costs each time they seek health. These costs are related to medication, co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance, and excluded charges or some combination of these items. With regard to the above-stated trends, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 was established as the most significant health reform program with the main aim of expanding health insurance coverage to the uninsured and people with less income. In an attempt to improve healthcare quality and reduce costs, health information technology has been identified as the critical element for achieving these In this regard, healthcare organizations need to adjust to the new health delivering environment through organizational change, which is most often linked with transformational leaders. According to Borkowski, Deckard, Weber, Padron, and Luongo (2011), transformational leaders are able to successfully change an organization’s culture and develop the system-wide alignment of strategies to meet the demands of its surroundings. The healthcare reform comes with initiatives aimed at transforming the healthcare industry. Therefore, transformative leadership style is needed to successfully create and communicate an organization 's vision with inspirational motivation, and empower others to accomplish the desired vision. This implies that the health care reform initiatives should be steered by visionary leaders who are competent of governing democratically. This would allow cooperation and facilitates an atmosphere in which all or most healthcare providers can work together to ensure that the new initiatives and systems are
The current health care landscape has been characterized by large scale consolidation and vertical integration of payers and providers. This has led to a handful of dominate players with substantial influence, and an increasing overlap in responsibilities between payers and providers. Although payers and providers have traditionally been on opposing sides, battling each other about quality of care versus cost-effective care, they are shifting to working together to achieve better value.
Due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law on March 23rd, 2010; health care in the US is presently in a state of much needed transition. As of 2008, 46 Million residents (15% of the population) were uninsured and 60% of residents had coverage from private insurers. 55% of those covered by private insurers received it through their employer and 5% paid for it directly. Federal programs covered 24% of Americans; 13% under Medicare and10% under Medicaid. (Squires, 2010)
On a global scale, the United States is a relatively wealthy country of advanced industrialization. Unfortunately, the healthcare system is among the costliest, spending close to 18% of gross domestic product (GDP) towards funding healthcare (2011). No universal healthcare coverage is currently available. United States healthcare is currently funded through private, federal, state, and local sources. Coverage is provided privately and through the government and military. Nearly 85% of the U.S. population is covered to some extent, leaving a population of close to 48 million without any type of health insurance. Cost is the primary reason for lack of insurance and individuals foregoing medical care and use of prescription medications.
The United States (U.S.) has a health care system that is much different than any other health care system in the world (Nies & McEwen, 2015). It is frequently recognized as one with most recent technological inventions, but at the same time is often criticized for being overly expensive (Nies & McEwen, 2015). In 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.) This plan was implemented in an attempt to make preventative care more affordable and accessible for all uninsured Americans (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.). Under the law, the new Patient’s Bill of Rights gives consumers the power to be in charge of their health care choices. (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.).
While most countries around the world have some form of universal national health care system, the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, does not. There are much more benefits to the U.S. adopting a dorm of national health care system than to keep its current system, which has proved to be unnecessarily expensive, complicated, and overall inefficient.
The implementation of a universal health care system in the United States is an important challenge that needs to be overcome. There are numerous amount of editorial that argue on both sides of the debate. Some people argue that a universal health care system would bring costs down and increase access to care while others argue that a universal health care system would be too expensive and reduce the quality of care. The correct answer requires intensive understanding and economics to overcome, the arguments must be examined for a proper answer.
Rising medical costs are a worldwide problem, but nowhere are they higher than in the U.S. Although Americans with good health insurance coverage may get the best medical treatment in the world, the health of the average American, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is below the average of other major industrial countries. Inefficiency, fraud and the expense of malpractice suits are often blamed for high U.S. costs, but the major reason is overinvestment in technology and personnel.
One of the policies that ACA made to improve healthcare quality is to provide free preventive screening, immunization, and wellness visit. Since this policy took place, 76 million Americans now receive free preventive care. Moreover, under this policy doctors will get paid more so they can take more proactive approach to patient care and making sure patients are healthy, rather than only treating them when they are sick. Also by making the healthcare recorders electronic that increased the quality of healthcare. Creating EHRs decreased healthcare errors, decreased the amount of time spent on documenting and increased space capacity. Moreover, by creating EHRs this gave the healthcare providers extra time to spend with their
The U.S. expends far more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet we get fewer benefits, less than ideal health outcomes, and a lot of dissatisfaction manifested by unequal access, the significant numbers of uninsured and underinsured Americans, uneven quality, and unconstrained wastes. The financing of healthcare is also complicated, as there is no single payer system and payment schemes vary across payors and providers.
With the United Nations listing health care as natural born right and the escalating cost of health care America has reached a debatable crisis. Even if you do have insurance it's a finical strain on most families.
The US health system has both considerable strengths and notable weaknesses. With a large and well-trained health workforce, access to a wide range of high-quality medical specialists as well as secondary and tertiary institutions, patient outcomes are among the best in the world. But the US also suffers from incomplete coverage of its population, and health expenditure levels per person far exceed all other countries. Poor measures on many objective and subjective indicators of quality and outcomes plague the US health care system. In addition, an unequal distribution of resources across the country and among different population groups results in poor access to care for many citizens. Efforts to provide comprehensive, national health insurance in the United States go back to the Great Depression, and nearly every president since Harry S. Truman has proposed some form of national health insurance.
The United States health care system is one of the most expensive systems in the world yet it is known as being unorganized and chaotic in comparison to other countries (Barton, 2010). This factor is attributed to numerous characteristics that define what the U.S. system is comprised of. Two of the major indications are imperfect market conditions and the demand for new technology (Barton, 2010). The health care system has been described as a free market in
Why now? Why are we focusing on transformational leadership? Healthcare costs are continuing to rise. Some of the critical problems and active debates prevalent in many hospital organizations include the rapidly intensifying healthcare costs, funding and reimbursement cutbacks, and concern regarding the overall quality and safety of health care. “Healthcare systems have come under pressure to improve performance and manage productivity” (Botting, 2011). To be successful in the 21st century, there is a demand on healthcare systems to have a vision and executive and clinical leadership to inspire the change process and make the difference between success and failure in change.
A manager’s leadership style must influence staff and others to take them seriously. A manager sets the tempo for the employees’ work ethic. Effective leadership from healthcare managers is important to the modern healthcare reform (Kumar, 2013). Leadership engagement in healthcare explains how a problem could affect a healthcare organization. Managers that hold leadership roles must adopt a certain style that can be functional for his or her initial organization to be successful. Performance improvement can be a very serious aspect of leadership engagement (Croxton, 2011). Healthcare managers need to have people from all areas involved to work effectively. Without the consistency of getting all staff and physicians involved, the organization may suffer greatly.
The cost of US health care has been steadily increasing for many years causing many Americans to face difficult choices between health care and other priorities in their lives. Health economists are bringing to light the tradeoffs which must be considered in every healthcare decision (Getzen, 2013, p. 427). Therefore, efforts must be made to incite change which constrains the cost of health care without creating adverse health consequences. As the medical field becomes more business oriented, there will be more of a shift in focus toward the costs and benefits, which will make medicine more like the rest of the economy (Getzen, 2013, p. 439).