Healthcare Financing
How do you start aHealthcare Financing research paper? Our expert writers suggest like this:
Healthcare financing is a topic that appears in economics, pre-med, nursing, finance, government and public policy courses in nearly every university across the country. Writing a project on healthcare financing is largely about what approach the student wants to take on the topic. For example, the current healthcare system is based upon the notion of each American buying health insurance and then these powerful insurance companies determine the cost of services. The problem in this is clear from any perspective. Economically, it puts the problem in the hands of supplier and gives no power to those in demand. The levels of concern in nursing and the medical profession for this structure are nearly infinite and the topic often gets quite complex.
Paper Masters advises that for whatever angle one approaches the topic of healthcare financing, hire a professional writer that researches and presents the most recent information regarding the problem of who should finance the healthcare system in the United States.
Commons topics covered include the following regarding healthcare financing:
- Who should pay for healthcare - Government or the individual?
- Trace the history of healthcare financing.
- Examine one country that finances healthcare through the government.
It is difficult to clearly understand the problem that has 50 million Americans out of the bounds of the services that the healthcare industry and the government say that everyone must be a part of. Sixteen percent of the population does not have healthcare yet everyone is required to have it when they are rushed to the hospital for care that may be life-threatening.
As the payment methods for healthcare are streamlined even further, healthcare organizations will have no other choice but to respond to these changes by making healthcare delivery more efficient and cost-effective. It is for these reasons that the use of multi-hospital systems will continue to proliferate. Clearly managed care and reimbursement systems have had a notable impact on shaping the delivery of care in the United States.
Insurance reimbursement has also impacted the proliferation of for-profit healthcare facilities. In recent years, the healthcare industry has evolved from a nonprofit industry to a for-profit marketplace. These authors argue that this process has been fueled by the fact that for-profit institutions often have a greater return on their operations. In 1999 for instance, even though nonprofit hospitals saw their revenues increase by 8 percent, their overall profits decreased. At the same time however, for-profit healthcare facilities saw an increase of 1 percent in profits.
The need to control healthcare costs is better achieved in an environment in which profits matter for the organization. In the for-profit healthcare organization, considerable focus is placed on optimizing service and providing it at the lowest possible cost. Public and private insurance companies continue to support this system as it ensures that costs are contained. As healthcare costs continue to increase, so too will the viability of for-profit institutions.
Finally, reimbursement systems in the healthcare system have also increased competition between physicians and hospitals. As noted by one author, many physicians have been forced to go where the money is when providing healthcare services to patients. For this reason, many physicians find that the only way in which they can remain competitive is to provide many of the services typically performed by hospitals.