The article “Wyoming: A Rural/Interior State Perspective on Public on Public Health Priorities”, discusses about the challenges of accessing health services in rural areas and their costs among other health policy concerns. This paper seek to review the article to have adequate understanding of the issues surrounding finances in healthcare in rural areas, particularly in Wyoming.
A Summary of the Main Points
Wyoming is one of the rural centers that faces health challenges. Examples of the health challenges experienced by the populations in Wyoming include higher rates of occupational fatalities, lower physicians in primary care, high rate of cigarette smoking, and lower rates of immunization, which results in adverse health consequences. The population affected most by the financial challenges in Wyoming are those that do not qualify for Affordable Care Act (ACA). The high costs hinder most populations in this area to access health care thereby contributing to poor health within the populations in Wyoming. Therefore, finances in healthcare have impacted negatively on the access to healthcare as well as on the quality of delivery of services, which results in negative health outcomes among rural populations in Wyoming.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Analysis
The current challenges presented with healthcare reform include costs and access. Insurance and health care are expensive and these are dominant issues that need to be addressed. However, since policy makers are answerable to the electorate, they are unable to fully establish and implement the desired policy measures to address the issue. Another challenge if Medicare, whereby it offers less than adequate costs of delivering health services to its beneficiaries. The hospital are left with financial burden, which is pushed to its patients with employment or individual based insurance. Other factors that have contributed to cost shifting include uncompensated care and medical reimbursement. Reimbursement challenges are contributed to by lack of a competitor in prices. This prompts the population to pay the monopolistic charges offered by insurance providers. Moreover, absence of an insurer and competitor in the rural areas contributes to exacerbations of insurance challenges. Furthermore, rural areas are currently experiencing challenges in recruiting and retaining health professionals.
The obstacles faced by the healthcare organizations in healthcare finance include lower tax revenue that cannot support public health challenges in the long-term. Additionally, despite the various measures for address different health policy activities in Wyoming, it lacks the options of prioritizing cost ad access.
Health organizations in rural areas experience various challenges in establishing organizational goals include limited training opportunities for nursing students. In addition, the healthcare organizations in rural areas face the challenge of higher wages paid to graduates in other states, which makes it difficult to find nurses who are ready to work in rural areas with lower pay compared to other states.
The healthcare challenges can be overcome by subsiding local taxes, generate more revenue from the hospital’s skilled nursing facilities, and improved Medicare reimbursement. In addition, healthcare organizations in rural areas should invest in telehealth technology because it foster increased access to selected services. Moreover, the use of telehealth promotes self-reports on health status among individuals thereby enhancing access to healthcare as well as promoting a strong sense of independence and self-reliance.
Conclusion
It is evident that dominant challenges in Wyoming is cost and access. The lack of options to prioritize costa and access issues hinders the ability of policy makers to implement measures that would address these issues. Therefore, the study recommends that it is crucial for the populations in rural areas to be persistent in addressing the health issues including access and costs. In addition, the population is advised to find a balance between federal authority and the state flexibility to prioritize the health of the populations in rural areas over special interest.
Reference
Scott, C & Kollar, C.F. (2019). Wyoming: A Rural/Interior State Perspective on Public on Public Health Priorities. AJPH Policy
