Healthcare Cost And Quality Essay Samples

HealthCare Cost and Quality

In the United States of America, healthcare is expensive especially for the majority of the population who comprise of the nation’s poor and middle class. Approximately, per capita spending on healthcare ranges between 50 to 200% higher compared to other developed nations across the world (Institute of Medicine (U.S.), Yong, Olsen & McGinnis, 2010, p.11). Regardless of the higher health care costs, the U.S performs poorly in most quality indicators.
The ineffective approval of drugs by the Food and Administration (FDA) is one of the factors that cause a poor correlation between healthcare quality and costs. Specifically, the FDA approves new drugs upon a comparison of the existing ones. Besides, there is no provision that new devices or drugs ought to be less costly and more effective in comparison to the already approved regimens. According to (Institute of Medicine (U.S.), Yong, Olsen, & McGinnis, 2010), the FDA approved new cancer drugs worthy $100000 per annum, which are anticipated to extend patients life merely beyond a month. Impliedly, there is the expensive adoption of new therapies with insufficient evidence of patient outcomes improvement.
Similarly, a poor correlation between cost and quality of healthcare exists because of the variation of prices of the same service under specific factors. Often, physicians receive payments from the Medicare that vary in regard to geographic location; education needs among other factors. The private insurers vary prices upon bargains from doctors. Consequently, it is evident that healthcare services are priced without consideration of the quality of care.
In recognition that quality healthcare improves the productivity of workers, private agencies develop plans and health programs that reduce costs and enhance productivity. The General Motor, for example, amalgamates many quality attributes into a single package. The agency considers employee satisfaction measures, impressions from site visits and quality indicators from HEDIS in pricing healthcare services (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011). In addition, the agency operates to allow sharing of best practices and formulation of quality improvement strategies. On the other hand, public agencies play essential roles in eliminating variations in quality and cost of healthcare. The agency for Healthcare research and quality improves the quality of care in America through sponsoring research. Specifically, the agency is responsible for enhancing the quality of healthcare, expanding access to health services and making interventions to reduce medical-related costs.
Currently, there are initiatives towards the reduction of unwarranted variation in healthcare services to improve medical care value. The Choosing Wisely campaign is an initiative that emphasizes on avoidance of unnecessary procedures or tests that are of little merit and which would potentially cause harm to a patient (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011).Nonetheless, there is a struggle to demarcate instances in which physicians need to withhold treatments. Besides, reduction of the use of treatment services would lead to a negligible impact on healthcare costs. Additionally, it is pertinent to consider that increasing or lowering of doctors’ reimbursement in an area is ineffective because clinical behaviors vary substantially. Concisely, increasing reimbursement seems to reward even the poor performers and to decrease it penalizes the excellent performers.
In the future, initiatives to advance research and develop measures to overcome overutilization of Medicare services are possible approaches to matching cost and quality of healthcare.in addition, there is need to develop a progressive commitment to patients, physicians and healthcare stakeholders to eliminate waste of resources and regional variation of healthcare. However, it is pertinent that the government and private agencies ensure that cost cutting is well monitored to avoid compromising patient outcomes and quality of care.
The transformation of the nursing profession in terms of education, practice and leadership is essential for improving patient outcomes. According to (Kovner, Knickman & Jonas, 2011), the use of full potential of nurses in a healthcare system leads to higher quality healthcare and improved value. The healthcare spending will slightly increase because of the need to allocate resources for the education of nurses in the advanced role. Often, these costs may not be reflected in the cost of healthcare services because the educated nurses are in a better position to avoid wastage of medical resources. In addition, the evidence-based practice would be pertinent in eliminating costs associated with unnecessary procedures and tests. However, measures should be put to ensure that the educated nurses’ full potential is tapped to realize the value in the medical services.
In conclusion, the cost of healthcare in the United States is considerably higher with a poor correlation with quality. The ineffective approval of drugs by the Food and Administration (FDA) is one of the factors that cause a poor correlation between healthcare quality and costs. Moreover, a variation of services based on geographic location worsens the situation. However, many initiatives can be used to address the cost-quality relationships in the healthcare sector. Therefore, the government must ensure that the citizens obtain quality and cost-effective healthcare.

References

Kovner, A. R., Knickman, J., & Jonas, S. (2011). Jonas and Kovner's health care delivery in the United States. New York: Springer Pub. Co.