The Current Health Care Environment, Research Paper Example

In this current health care environment, health care consumers have less control over their choices. In a sense, this lack of control is related directly to staffing in their healthcare field, which impacts patient care in both hospital and private settings. In addition, most health care consumers are restricted to the healthcare network that their health insurance companies work with so that they are able to reduce their personal costs. Healthcare is expensive, and only wealthy healthcare consumers have complete control over all aspects of their care.

The nursing shortage relates to the lack of control that healthcare consumers have over their choices as it relates to the urgency of healthcare needs (Halsley, 2009). People with urgent sickness or illness will most likely travel to the hospital, where they will certainly receive care, but they may not be attended to as quickly as one would hope due to decreased levels of staffing on night and weekends. When time is wasted like this, the healthcare consumer will enter the hospital having many treatment and medication options available to them, to only a few as their condition worsens. When emergencies occur and staffing is short, it is also likely to cost the customer more money to receive his or her care; more drastic procedures often require more money to be billed to the customers insurance company. In some cases, the insurance company doesn’t cover the full amount of the procedure, and the client will be left with higher copays.

Although the above is a dramatic example, there are other ways that health insurance companies constrain the healthcare choices of their consumers. When a doctor is out of the insurance network, the consumer may have to pay an increased copayment or take on the full charge of the visit. In a situation where a consumer wants to visit a doctor because of their reputation as a well-trusted physician in their field, a consumer is often unable to see the best in the field because of this restriction. Furthermore, insurance companies also limit the type of care that an individual can receive. Some insurance companies require their consumers to go through a general practitioner before visiting a specialist in order to get authorization for the visit. In many cases, the healthcare consumer is aware of their medical condition, and has, at the minimum, knowledge to be able to select the correct specialist. While it seems like insurance companies may be doing this to ensure that their consumers are getting the right kind of care, this type of policy is put in place to ensure that they will be able to pay less for specialist care, because these visits typically cost more than a visit to the general practitioner.

Insurance companies limit control over health care choices in general, but with the advent of Obamacare and other socialized healthcare programs, this limit is increasing (healthcare.gov, n.d.). While Obamacare is an excellent concept, it hasn’t been enacted long enough and tweaked so that it can provide maximal benefit to the public. Families who wish to remain on private insurance are finding that their premiums are increasing to the point that they are unaffordable, which is making them need to switch to Obamacare, even if they don’t want it. Although it is likely that Obamacare will include a wide variety of care and coverage for its subscribers, it has taken away the ability of many people to subscribe to private health insurance, which may include benefits and network members that people need and prefer.

References

Halsey, Ashley. “Jobs Scarce, Even for Nurses: Economic Crisis Freezes Field Once Short of Workers”. Washington Post. 2009. Web. 23 January 2014.

Healthcare.gov. Learn. N.D. Web. 23 January 2014. <https://www.healthcare.gov/>