Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay

Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay

Hello Lolade Ogunleye,

Great post! You provided an informative and educational post for this week’s discussion and I enjoyed reading your work. I agree that administrative inefficiencies have drastically increased the cost of healthcare services in the United States thus making the country have the most expensive healthcare services among the developed nations. Allow me to add that besides administrative inefficiencies, Zhang et al., (2017) discuss that technology plays a significant role in increasing the cost of healthcare services in the United States because of the high cost of healthcare systems like the EHRs and the high cost of installation and maintenance. Additionally, the cost of training healthcare providers to understand how to effectively use the new technological systems in the facility adds up to the increasing cost of healthcare services. Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay

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Therefore, healthcare policy reforms should be used as a leeway to ensure that high-quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare services are provided to the American citizens because the three components (cost, quality, and access) make up an appropriate healthcare service (Benson, 2020). It is important to understand that advanced practice nurses and other providers participate in the policy-making and policy reforms and therefore, they should ensure that policies like pay for service are introduced into the healthcare system to help in reducing the cost of paying providers, increase the quality of service provided, and reduce the cost of healthcare services thus making affordable to all. However, Zhang et al., (2017) emphasize that healthcare technology has both advantages and disadvantages, and healthcare administrators and providers need to understand the cost-effectiveness principle of technology and diffuse how much technology is appropriate. In so doing, healthcare facilities will have efficient management of healthcare costs, access, and quality Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay.

 References

Benson, B. (2020). The Cost of Staying Alive: Healthcare in America. https://scholar.valpo.edu/chofp/10

Zhang, M., Luo, M., Nie, R., & Zhang, Y. (2017). Technical attributes, health attribute, consumer attributes and their roles in adoption intention of healthcare wearable technology. International journal of medical informatics, 108, 97-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.09.016 Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay

lolade ogunleye
RE: Discussion – Week 5
COLLAPSE
The US has one of the highest healthcare spendings in developed nations, and healthcare costs have increased dramatically in the past decades. One significant challenge to containing health care costs is administrative inefficiency related to the various components of the payer/provider/patient interface (Nunn et al., 2020). The administrative costs occur in various forms, including prior authorization and eligibility determinations, claims processing and payment, and quality measurement. High administrative costs are particularly important contributors to high healthcare expenditures, which show the need for reforms to decrease costs in the US (Nunn et al., 2020)Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay. The high US administrative healthcare costs reflect the inefficiencies of the current healthcare system.

Administrative costs cannot be eliminated, even in a public healthcare system, but they can be reduced through technology, policies, and practices. Policymakers across the US envision using technology to reduce administrative overhead and processes before and after care (Cutler, 2020). The policymakers argue that healthcare technology can be implemented to facilitate the scheduling of patients’ appointments, manage patient communications, bill patients, and collect payments, which will lower administrative costs. For instance, they are pushing for policies for all facilities to have electronic medical records since they streamline patient care processes.

I agree with the policymakers that policies are needed requiring facilities to have certain technologies that streamline healthcare delivery. While healthcare organizations currently budget more than a quarter of their spending toward administrative tasks, technology has a great opportunity to simplify a patient’s care and reduce administrative costs. Hospitals should put a greater emphasis on healthcare technology that increases patients’ choice and access to care (Cutler, 2020)Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay. The focus of the technology should be to remove barriers to healthcare appointments and provide direct, transparent pricing for every patient care aspect.

References

Cutler, D. M. (2020). Reducing administrative costs in US health care. The Hamilton Project Policy Proposal, 9, 3-25.

Nunn, R., Parsons, J., & Shambaugh, J. (2020). A dozen facts about the economics of the US healthcare system. Economic Facts. Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project Reducing Administrative Costs In US Health Care Essay