Healthcare services in the United States have been rapidly increasing in recent decades. A study by the American Medical Association (AMA, 2019) journal describes that the United States expenditure on health care services rose to $3.5 trillion in 2017 that is approximately $11,000 per individual. It is also estimated that by 2027 the costs will hike up to about 6 trillion that is $17,000 per individual. Several significant reasons are associated with the raising of the cost of healthcare services in the country. They include population growth, disease incidence or occurrence, aging of the population, utilization of medical service, and intensity and service price. The government has been trying to reduce the cost of healthcare services by trying to come up with alternative ways to curb the rising cost. This paper looks into several ways to control healthcare service costs using the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, and equity.
The alternative ways to control the cost of healthcare services include refocusing on labor management. This practice was lost a few years back, but it was one of the most satisfactory criteria to employ the right professionals. The healthcare system needs to match resource demand and ensure that they have the practitioners with the right skills for the workload (Cutler, 2018). Another way is by managing employed physicians, whereby many healthcare centers acquire physicians till they are handoff in their daily operations or activities. Therefore, physicians need to be familiar with benchmarking for equal internal reviews, which entails looking into their operations and finding out the support staff needed (Cutler, 2018).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Changing the environment of patient encounters is also another way of controlling cost. The Healthcare system needs to adapt to this practice and plan on how to supervise certain types of patients (Cutler, 2018). For instance, through technology, health practitioners can use telemedicine as an alternative way to use specialized skills, modify resources, and allow centralization (Cutler, 2018). Regulations should change to put up with the telemedicine. Enhancing average approaches with technology, which helps control healthcare services costs, is an essential practice towards cost reduction. The most healthcare system cannot easily realize the cost of services they provide. Regulating clinical care provision and reducing variation positively influence the cost (Calvin, 2018).
Cost Management Suite (CORUS) is a suitable tool that can understand the providing care cost across the range and associate all those costs and the outcome of the patient (Calvin, 2018). Another alternative way to control cost is by managing the flow and access of patients through the healthcare system (Calvin, 2018). The healthcare systems have to take a business tactic to evaluate capacity, control patients' inappropriate places, and the kind of services offered to them (Cutler, 2018).
Efficiency always encourages the use of cheaper healthcare practices but effective or that are cost-effective. This can happen by avoiding the unnecessary use of healthcare services (Sorato, 2020). This can be possible considering the changing environment of patients' encounters leads to spending fewer resources. CORUS can be sufficient to cost as it makes aware of the healthcare system about the provision of service and knowing the costs (Sorato, 2020).
Conclusively, the healthcare system has problems issues with cost, but there are also solutions. The system should first begin by recognizing the problems, find the source of the problem, and followed by the improvement journey. The healthcare system needs to be keen on selecting appropriate problem-solving strategies and also maintaining acceptable practices. Adopting relevant technology will help address issues like recruiting required practitioners spreading excellent practices all combine to in the cost war.
References
American Medical Association (AMA). (2019). Trends in Health Care Spending. Journal of American Medical Association. https://www.ama-ass.org
Calvin, J. (2018). Strategies to Improving Healthcare Efficiency while Reducing Costs. Health and Medical Administration Commons . 12(1): 8-16. https://www.schplarwrks.waldenu.edu/
Cutler, D. (2018). Reducing Healthcare Costs: Decreasing Administrative Spending. Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 24(2): 13-18.
Sorato, M. (2020). Improving Healthcare System Efficiency For Equity, Quality, And Access: Does The Healthcare Decision Making Involve The Concerns Of Equity? Journal of Health and Medical Economics . Vol. 6, 1: 45. https://www.imedpub.com
