U.S. HEALTHCARE

U.S. Healthcare

The term healthcare refers to maintaining or restoring health. It comprises a variety of care such as care of skin, eyes, teeth, heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, bones, blood, and mental state, among others. Aside from practitioners of forms of alternative and natural forms of medicine, numerous green healthcare practices are emerging in the United States and elsewhere. These practices focus on a range of activities, from the environmental impacts of building and administering medical and healthcare services to promoting community and environmental health. (DiMasi, Hansen, Grabowski, 2003)

The government's role in health care delivery is tri-fold. The government serves as a payer of health care, as a provider of health care, and as a regulator of health care. Each of these roles is distinct, and each has its own impact on the delivery of health care.

At a federal level, the government serves as a payer of healthcare programs. In its role as provider of health care, the government at the federal, state, and local level owns and operates direct service departments (e.g., the Veterans Administration and Indian Health Services at the federal level, mental health facilities and hospitals at the state and local level)

As regulator, governments at all levels impose laws, regulations, and ordinances on hospitals. In addition to the rules and regulations of the state and local governments that impact environmental, sanitation, reporting, building, licensing, reimbursement, and operations of health facilities, federal laws and regulations affect every area of the hospital's operations. Included among these are the following:

The Emergency Medical Transportation and Active Labor Act

Certificate of need

The Stark and antifraud and abuse laws

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

The evolving role of consumers in taking more responsibility for their health and the consequent rise of consumerism in health care have created the need for a shift in the way in which health care executives think about their customers. Compelled to reach deeper and deeper into their pockets to cover the cost of care, customers are more knowledgeable and bring higher expectations to their medical care experience. Effective leadership entails a move away from physician-centric operations to consumer-centric practices, from passive models of customer service to active models, one that measures success from the patient's perspective which typically is focused on the health care experience

The financing of health care in the United States is part public, part private; part national health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, and several other government which include sponsored programs, part employer sponsored and increasingly individually purchased through private-pay insurance plans as well as out-of-pocket payments from consumers. It's a complex system that consumes a major part of wealth in the United States but still it has left almost 20% of the population with no coverage and many more with far too little coverage. Under the health reform legislation of 2010 (HR 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and HR 4872, The Reconciliation Act), many of the uninsured will receive health care coverage through an expanded Medicaid program ...