Topic 2

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Grand Canyon University *

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Medicine

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Apr 3, 2024

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Topic 2 DQ 1 Health insurance has a huge impact on an individual’s access to healthcare and their health outcomes. Health insurance reduces financial burden from health services and covers preventative care at low or no cost (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). However, access to health insurance is one of the barriers to healthcare access and contributes to disparities in health. Individuals that do not have health insurance have to pay for healthcare services out of pocket. If an individual is unable to pay for services themselves, then they are forced to look for healthcare that has no cost or go without healthcare (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). With added costs from no health insurance, individuals’ health is negatively impacted due to them avoiding health monitoring. This can lead to an increase in chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, n.d.). Yet, those that have health insurance have better access to health services and have better health outcomes. This is why most individuals in the United States have health insurance. These individuals obtain insurance through private owned sources (employer), or public sources (government funded). The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to assist in decreasing the number of uninsured (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). Continuing, reliance on employer-based health insurance can be ideal for individuals and an employer. For individuals, reliance on employer-based health insurance is beneficial because they know that their medical costs are covered as well as many offer family plans. This is also beneficial to the employer because they have an incentive to keep employees in their company and do not have to go through the hiring process. A reliance on employer-based health insurance for health care provider is also ideal since they will obtain payment from the health insurance company as well as the individual if their plan does not cover 100% of the visit or treatment. The negative effect on employer-based insurance is if an individual is unemployed or the cost of the insurance plan is too high. Moreover, as a society the employer-based health insurance is both beneficial and detrimental. Those that are employed will benefit along with their family since they are able to obtain coverage through their employer. However, those that are unemployed, elderly, or disabled do not benefit from these plans and they must find coverage from public sources. The federal government should have a more prominent role in providing health insurance. Currently, there is a mix of public and private insurers and with the federal government only providing funding for Medicare and Medicaid. However, states still have the power to manage and pay for aspects of local coverage (Tikkanen et al., 2020). While these services are helpful, universal health care can benefit more individuals and ensure better health outcomes. The universal healthcare policy (UHC) will allow the federal government to relieve financial burden from individuals and provide affordable health care (Tikkanen et al., 2020). With universal health care coverage, policies can be created to address the social determinants of health and give individuals the right to health. References

Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. (n.d.). Access to Health Services . Healthy People 2030. https://health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants- health/literature-summaries/access-health-services Wilensky, S. E., & Teitelbaum, J. B. (2023). Essentials of health policy and law (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning. Tikkanen, R., Osborn, R., Mossialos, E., Djordjevic, A., & Wharton, G. A. (2020, June 5). International Health Care System Profiles United States. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/ united-states Topic 2 DQ 2 In the United States, there are couple of factors that impact quality care. One factor is integration in health care services. The United States is struggling with this factor, and it can impact the quality of care an individual receives. The lack of integration in health care services means providers, hospitals, and specialists have a disconnect within one another and patient information and data is not exchanged routinely (Kaiser Permanente, 2024). This can lead to missed health screenings, medical errors, unnecessary tests, and missed treatments. With this, chronic conditions can be missed such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Furthermore, the high level of spending is another factor that impact quality of care in the United States. High level of spending can lead to poor outcomes that are related to appropriate care and medical errors (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). To improve quality of care there are six key areas of improvement to focus on. These include safety, efficacy, patient-centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, and equity. Safety is important because it ensures patients and staff are safe during treatment. Healthcare workers should feel safe in their profession and should not be harmed. Similar with patients, they should not be endangered while they are receiving healthcare services (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). Furthermore, safety includes the standard of care is the same and does not decline, and patients and families are fully informed regarding their care. Continuing, efficacy is another key area of improvement. Efficacy involves utilizing evidence-based treatments. This can include clinical trials or a variety of research designs. Healthcare provides can encourage the use of evidence-based treatments by improving data collection and analysis capabilities (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). The next key area is patient-centeredness. This key area involves patient’s needs, values, and preference to ensure that there are smooth transition of care and close coordination among providers. This also involves ensuring that the information being provided I based on each patient’s education level and language they can understand (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). Timeliness and efficiency are the next key areas of improvement. Timeliness is ensuring that care is being received in a timely manner. The United States struggles with this key area as there are long wait times at the emergency room, urgent cares, doctors’ office, for appointments, and for procedures. With timeliness, medical problems are caught early such as chronic conditions. Efficiency is ensuring that resources are being used accordingly and there is

no waste. This also involves maintaining the level of spending for resources and treatments. Lastly, equity is essential to provide health benefits to all individuals and access to care. On an individual level, equity is improving access to care for patients. In the United States, the ACA is currently in assisting to reduce the number of uninsured individuals. On a population-level, equity is reducing healthcare disparities (Wilensky & Teitelbaum, 2023). In the United States, one challenge in addressing many of these improvements is the level of spending and access to affordable healthcare. The United States is attempting to create policies such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to assist in affordable healthcare and access to care. However, with the high level of spending and access to healthcare still being a concern it is difficult to address these improvements. From the six key areas of improvements, I believe the most important area is equity. Having an equitable healthcare system is important because it will allow all individuals to have the same access to all services. With this, I would advocate for universal health care. With the high level of spending the federal and local governments have on healthcare, it will be more cost effective for them to adopt universal healthcare. With this, I would gather data on population socioeconomic statuses and background, past and current policies, and prominent health issues. From this, data on current spending on healthcare services to be able to compare with the amount of spending it will be for universal healthcare. References Kaiser Permanente. (2024, March 7). What is Quality Health Care and Why it Matters . Permanente Medicine. https://permanente.org/medical-excellence/what-is-quality- healthcare-and-why-it-matters/ Wilensky, S. E., & Teitelbaum, J. B. (2023). Essentials of health policy and law (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

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