Healthcare Cost in the US Essay

BY DAY 3 OF WEEK 1

Post a description of the national healthcare issue/stressor you selected for analysis, and explain how the healthcare issue/stressor may impact your work setting. Then, describe how your health system work setting has responded to the healthcare issue/stressor, including a description of what changes may have been implemented. Be specific and provide examples.

The Healthcare Cost

Healthcare expenditure is a major national concern in the America. In 2020, healthcare expenditure accounted for 20% of the nation’s GDP, up from 5% in 1960 (Health System Tracker). Moreover, the WHO (2021) reports that US healthcare spending constitutes more than 40% of the global healthcare expenditure. Healthcare Cost in the US Essay These costs do not translate to more or better healthcare services. Rather, Americans pay more for each healthcare interaction. Hence, it is necessary to understand the underlying factors, the impact on care settings, and the potential responses to the issue.

Issue Description

Healthcare is more expensive in the USA due to multiple administrative costs. For instance, there is the department of human and health services, Medicare, and Medicaid at the federal level. These agencies have representation in all the states, plus state-level boards, agencies, and legislative authorities. Coordinating all these entities is costly. Meanwhile, the country lacks effective control over drug pricing. Suppliers base their prices on the demand-supply metrics, resulting in the highest bearable price at any particular location. Lastly, healthcare costs are higher since providers focus on avoiding legal exposure, causing many potentially unnecessary procedures. Consequently, physicians order more tests per consumer than their counterparts in other parts of the world. These tests are also more expensive, such as the CT scan (97 dollars in Canada, 896 in the US) (Knox, 2018). Therefore, healthcare becomes a bigger financial burden Healthcare Cost in the US Essay.

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Impact on Care Setting

The exorbitant prices impede healthcare service delivery. First, psychiatric care practitioners struggle to promote mental well-being due to the prohibitive prices. Mental well-being is one of the more expensive healthcare routines in America. For instance, depression can cost up to ten thousand dollars annually. Comparatively, an insulin-dependent diabetes patient will spend 4,800 dollars (Nguyen & Mui, 2020). Hence, fewer people are unwilling to seek treatment. The steep prices also fuel the general disregard for psychiatric health. Some people see it as a profit-oriented sector, discouraging engagement. The reluctance is unfortunate since the population is struggling with multiple issues, including trauma, substance abuse, etc., that require specialized care. Therefore, healthcare costs impede the actual and potential delivery of clinical services to address individual and collective psychiatric needs.

Response to Issue

Psychiatric Healthcare professionals are responding to the cost-based challenge by developing more clinical solutions. For instance, Melnyk (2020) developed the Creating Opportunities for Personal Empowerment (COPE) program to enable teenagers to deal with mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. The intervention resulted in fewer hospitalizations, reducing patient-specific costs by over 14,000 dollars. Additionally, caregivers are integrating digital tools, such as cognitive behavioral therapy apps and game-like experiences for individuals with less severe needs (Blumenfield & Levin-Scherz, 2020). The result is that more people can afford basic mental healthcare at a low cost. Additionally, these tools prevent psychiatric deterioration, resulting in fewer cost-intensive needs.

Conclusion

According to Park et al. (2018), the ideal payment model for primary care are to be determined, lessons learned from existing payment models can help guide the shift from volume-based to value-based care. Caregivers are unable to reach many people due to these costs. Also, the high prices cause the general public to develop a negative attitude towards psychiatric health treatment, exacerbating the problem.

However, there is still the need to develop more sustainable and systematic solutions to make fundamental mental health treatment more affordable Healthcare Cost in the US Essay.

References

Blumenfield, S., & Levin-Scherz, J. (2020, Dec. 03). Digital Tools Are Revolutionizing Mental Health Care in the US https://hbr.org/2020/12/digital-tools-are-revolutionizing-mental-health-care-in-the-u-sLinks to an external site.

Health System Tracker. (2022). Health expenditures 1960 – 2020. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/health-spending-explorer/?outputType=%25gdp&serviceType%5B0%5D=allTypes&sourceOfFunds%5B0%5D=allSources&tab=0&yearCompare%5B0%5D=%2A&yearCompare%5B1%5D=%2A&yearRange%5B0%5D=%2A&yearRange%5B1%5D=%2A&yearSingle=%2A&yearType=rangeLinks to an external site.

Knox, R. (2018, Mar. 13). Why Are US Health Costs the World’s Highest? Study Affirms ‘It’s The Prices, Stupid.’ https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/03/13/us-health-costs-high-jhaLinks to an external site.

Melnyk, B. M. (2020). Reducing healthcare costs for mental health hospitalizations with the evidence-based COPE program for child and adolescent depression and anxiety: a cost analysis. Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 34(2), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedhc.2019.08.002Links to an external site.

Nguyen, A., & Mui, K. (2020, Apr. 07). The Staggering Cost of Controlled and Uncontrolled Diabetes. https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/diabetes-type-2/annual-cost-of-managing-diabetes-and-treating-uncontrolled-diabetesLinks to an external site.

Park, B., Gold, S. B., Bazemore, A., & Liaw, W. (2018). How evolving United States payment models influence primary care and its impact on the Quadruple Aim Links to an external site. Links to an external site.. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 31(4), 588–604 Healthcare Cost in the US Essay.

World Health Organization [WHO]. (2021). Global expenditure on health: Public spending on the rise? [PDF File]. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240041219

BY DAY 6 OF WEEK 1 – Healthcare Cost in the US Essay

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days who chose a different national healthcare issue/stressor than you selected. Explain how their chosen national healthcare issue/stressor may also impact your work setting and what (if anything) is being done to address the national healthcare issue/stressor.

Healthcare Cost in the US Essay response 1

Thank you for your discussion and input regarding the costs of healthcare. This is another major concern than effects just about everyone! I was aware that healthcare is more expensive in America, but I didn’t realize that American providers were ordering more tests than other countries for legal reasons. I have found that even with good health insurance, the cost of healthcare has had an impact on my likeliness to seek medical care for myself. I always enjoy seeing how topics impact the mental health population in medicine, and I was not surprised to see that mental health ranked highly among the most expensive routines. Kan, et al. (2021) looked at the world-wide cost of major depressive disorder (MDD) and found that it’s “expected to be among the top three diseases with the highest global burden of disease in 2030. So many factors are involved in the cost and treatment of mental health. Even in the facility I work now there are discrepancies in cost for outpatient and inpatient services. Once I transitioned to an outpatient role and started to see how challenging it was to get care for patients, it was explained to me that outpatient doesn’t make the money for the company, inpatient is where they make profit. I find it disturbing that we put so much emphasis on the inpatient population rather than trying to prevent inpatient stays with outpatient services. Healthcare Cost in the US Essay Himmelstein & Woolhandler (2021) describe how healthcare systems are “big investors in hedge funds and private equity.” I agree that we have made some strides in combating the high costs of care, but much work needs to be done to bring population health and wellbeing to the forefront of consideration. Thank you for a great discussion post!

Reference:

Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. (2021). Health Care Crisis Unabated: A Review of Recent Data on Health Care in the United States. International Journal of Health Services, 51(2), 182–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020731420981497

Kan, K., Lokkerbol, J., Jörg, F., Visser, E., Schoevers, R. A., & Feenstra, T. L. (2021). Real-World Treatment Costs and Care Utilization in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder With and Without Psychiatric Comorbidities in Specialist Mental Healthcare. PharmacoEconomics, 39(6), 721–730. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40273-021-01012-xLinks to an external site.

Healthcare Cost in the US Essay response 2

Healthcare costs are incredibly high. I had an X-ray when I hurt my back, and my copay was $350 at a rural hospital in the Midwest. X-Rays cost $600 and up. I also had to purchase a prescription savings plan to lower costs. I take two medications for high blood pressure and have allergies and back issues. Without the prescription savings plan, my medications would be about $300 a month. My copay for doctors’ visits is $20, and I pay half the cost of any procedure, including surgery and childbirth. The copay on an emergency room visit is $100.

While working in a medical unit, I noticed that patients with insulin-dependent diabetes are admitted to the hospital to receive insulin they cannot afford at home. The nurse caseworkers assist them with costs to prevent future admissions Healthcare Cost in the US Essay.

Blue cross blue shield (2022) reports that healthcare spending in the United States is 3 trillion yearly and rising. The factors causing high health insurance costs are prescription drug prices, chronic diseases, unhealthy lifestyles, and an aging population. Hospital systems use technology that monitors patients for risk factors using artificial intelligence to lower costs (Wolters Kluwer, 2022).

I had the opportunity to do light duty at my hospital corporate office after I hurt my back. The department I worked in discussed the price of healthcare and why they had to exclude certain benefits from the health plan because adding them would increase the cost of the healthcare plan for the employees. At my hospital, some departments monitor healthcare costs and determine the best way to ensure everyone is insured at the lowest cost. However, the copays are still high and burden the employee.

References

Blue Cross Blue Shield. (2022). Why does healthcare cost so much? https://www.bcbs.com/issues-indepth/why-does-healthcare-cost-so-muchLinks to an external site.

Wolters Kluwer. (2022). Reducing healthcare costs | Healthcare challenges. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/know/healthcare-challenges/reducing-healthcare-costsLinks to an external site. Healthcare Cost in the US Essay