Reforming the U.S. healthcare system involves changing the health care system and how it works to make it better for all U.S. citizens. Arguably, healthcare reform has become a big issue in the United States. This is because the current health care system is unfordable for Americans and is fundamentally flawed. The spiralling costs of the current system leave many United States citizens unable to afford access to proper care. The current system presents challenges to physicians and other healthcare professionals, patients, medical students, as well as the government. Primarily, the current U.S. healthcare system is criticized for its inefficiency, inaccessibility, and ever-rising costs despite the government spending heavily on healthcare. Implementing effective and good health care reforms will provide cost-effective outcomes while examining the future results that the reforms implemented brings. However, since private companies and not the government controls the U.S. healthcare system, an all over change will challenging.
The current U.S. healthcare system is not what it could or should be. Thus, it needs to be reformed. One of the areas that need to be addressed is the financial problems of the U.S. health care system. This is because it is the spotlight of the numerous healthcare complications faced in healthcare. Resources are decreasing, whereas the need for services is increasing. In addition, the cost of delivering health care services is increasing significantly. The health care financial reform represents the need for health care organizations to utilize the limited available resources to achieve a health care system that is efficient, accessible, and cost-effective. This would enable the health care system in the U.S. to remain viable while addressing the growing demand for health care services. This paper will delve at creating a health care reform proposal. More specifically, the paper will first address the current conditions of the U.S. health care system, including the escalating cost of health care. The paper will then confront the financial issues by promoting a system that utilizes electronic medical records and health records.
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Many U.S. presidents have tried to reform the system in order to make it better. Some have succeeded in implementing good reforms, and others have not. During President Barrack Obama presidency, the federal government and the Obama administration reformed the U.S. health care system when the signing of the Affordable Care Act and Patient Protection came into law. The Affordable Care Act managed to increase access to health care services, took massive strides in providing affordable insurance, as well as more health care regulations. However, the Affordable Care Act is only a stepping stone for total reform. The Act aimed to provide more coverage, better benefits, and low costs.
Government spending is causing many hardships for health care providers, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance companies. The Affordable Care Act purposes the Americans, who are the consumers, is in control of their health care. Primarily, the Affordable Care Act purposes to aid in decreasing government spending. Since its establishment, the Affordable Care Act, health care providers receive incentives through new ways of delivering health care services, ensuring efficiency, and improve the cost of health care. The use of electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (HER) is one of the ways that health care organizations can better manage the care of patients.
Health care organizations facilitate the use of EMR, which are the digital equivalent of paper records in health care facilities. EMRs contain information collected by and for clinicians or other health care professionals to be used for diagnosis and treatment (USF Health, N.d). EMRs enable health care providers to track data over time, monitor patients, identify patients for screening, and improve the quality of health care (Health IT, N.d). On the other hand, electronic health records (EHR) go beyond standard clinical information collected by health care professionals and are inclusive of a broader view of a patient’s care (Hedges, 2019). In other words, EHRs include more personal information about a patient’s medical history as well as insurance coverage (Meyerhoefer, Deily, Sherer, Chou, Peng, Sheinberg, & Levick, 2016). EHRs also share information with other health care providers, such as hospitals, laboratories, specialists, and even to another state. Most EMRs are used for provider’s diagnosis and treatment, and the information is gathered from on patient at that specific health care facility (USF Health, N.d). EMRs and EHRs are very important, but not every health care facility has a proper electronic record system. Health care facilities ought to organize records accordingly and implement critical systems to improve care and service delivery.
According to Vaughn & Breeden (2016), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid were granted permission to offer reimbursement enticement to hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities and providers that succeed in the utilization of electronic records. However, despite these federal enticements, the use of electronic records barely increased due to the Health Insurance Affordable Act. As Vaughn & Breeden (2016) state, “situations about medical billing process disrupt the cash flow and financial concerns.” The federal enticements aimed to find ways to make health care providers use resources productively with the use of electronic records within managed care.
The basic purpose of EMRs and EHRs is documentation (Hedges, 2019). These systems allow hospital and clinics to track patient data, monitor patients, schedule diagnosis and treatments, as well as improve quality of health care provided by health care facilities (Meyerhoefer et al., 2016). Health care facilities that use electronic health records have reported significant improvement in the quality of health care delivered. This is because the ability of health care providers to make clinical decisions is improved with the information provided by these electronic medical records. EHRs and EMRs give physicians more accurate and comprehensive information about patients, and this facilitates coordination between health care providers and patients. With EHRs all information relating to individual patients is stored in one place, and this information can be used in the future or be shared with other health care specialist and patient convenience (Hedges, 2019). The reliability of patient information is crucial for effective care. The use of electronic health records can make health care facilities provide the best care possible for patients. This would result in the delivery of quality health care as well as better patient outcomes.
The U.S. is spending a lot in the health care sector. Despite the huge spending, the U.S. consistently ranks near the bottom in terms of health metrics when compared to other developed nations. Today more than ever, U.S. citizens are faced with the issues of rising health care cost. For instance, in 2017, the health care spending in the United States grew by 3.9 percent reaching $3.5 trillion (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2018). There are numerous factors that account for the rising costs of health care. This calls for the implementation of health care reforms to address the issues. One of the financial reforms that have to be implemented is the use of electronic medical records. Although it may seem like a small problem, the use of electronic medical records has the potential to result in better patient outcomes.
Many health care professionals report that the use of electronic health records can help increase efficiency in health care facilities as well as help save cost. According to a study done by The National Learning Center in doctors on the importance of using electronic medical records, the use of electronic medical records can help improve efficiency and save time. According to the survey, 79% reported EHRs improved efficiency, 82% reported sending EHRs electronically saves time and, 91% reported benefit health care facilities in some form (Koll & Tan, 2016). According to Koll and Tan, the financial benefits of electronic medical records can range between $38 million and $60 million in a five-year time in addition to tax incentives and reimbursement rates. However, these benefits depend on the size of the health care organization as well as the extent of implementation. By implementing electronic medical records, health care facilities can save on transcription costs, storage and paper costs, as well as savings attributed to more accurate reimbursement coding and improved documentation for the billing process (Koll & Tan, 2016). Overall, the adoption of electronic health records is beneficial to health care facilities.
Reforming a health care system can have different impacts on health care providers, insurance companies, the federal government, and consumers. A good reform should aim at improving the quality of health care, increasing health care coverage, and minimizing costs of health care. Given the diversity of these issues, it would be difficult to implement a single health care reform that can address all the needs. Thus, the best way is to address each of these issues individually in order to get insight and begin to change. Because of its inefficiency, the current U.S. health care system needs to be reformed. With the use of electronic medical records, health care organizations can achieve a change that can impact the future of health care. There are many benefits associated with the use of electronic health and medical record, which include an increase in efficiency and productivity, efficient management of resources, improvement of health care quality and reduction of health care costs. EHRs can increase the reliability of the information, which is crucial for effective care.
References
Centers for Medicaid and Medicare. (2018). National Health expenditure data. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical.html . Accessed 29 th July 2019.
Hedges, L. (2019). EHR vs. EMR –What’s the difference. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/ehr-vs-emr-whats-difference/ . Accessed 29 th July 2019.
Health IT. (N.d). What are the differences between electronic medical records, electronic health records, and personal health records? [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.healthit.gov/faq/what-are-differences-between-electronic-medical-records-electronic-health-records-and-personal . Accessed 29 th July 2019.
Koll, R., & Tan, S. S. (2016). Electronic Health Records: How can research contribute to transforming health care? Quarterly, 40(3), 553-574.
Meyerhoefer, C. D., Deily, M. E., Sherer, S. A., Chou, S., Peng, L., Sheinberg, M., & Levick, D. (2016). The Consequences of Electronic Health Record Adoption for Physician Productivity. ILR Review, 69 (4), 860-889.
USF Health. (N.d). What is EMR? [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.usfhealthonline.com/resources/key-concepts/what-are-electronic-medical-records-emr/ . Accessed 29 th July 2019.
Vaughn, D., & Breeden, A. (2016). Electronic Health Records: The Future of Standard of Care? Defense Counsel Journal, 83(4), 496-498.
