Introduction
The health system is generally very complex, which has indicated significant challenges to patients, healthcare teams, and policymakers. The nature of the complexity reveals itself in so many ways, such as complicated policy cover, billing complexities, and regulatory hurdles. Recognizing and dealing with the intricacies is essential to provide necessary and cost-efficient healthcare. This topic carries professional relevance as it involves healthcare workers, patients, and policymakers operating in the healthcare system. During my career as a healthcare provider, I have witnessed this frustration and confusion when patients try to interpret their insurance plan coverage or the medical bills they receive. I have also encountered the time-consuming administration process for healthcare providers with complicated hospital billings and compulsory regulatory requirements.
Alfano, V., & Guarino, M. (2023). Why Do You Make Things So Complicated? Understanding the Texts of Regulations During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Italian Economic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40797-023-00243-5
Analyzing the technicalities of regulatory language helps the authors highlight the difficulties in public understanding and compliance with the pandemic control protocols. They examine how good communication can help the government convince and gain public approval of the imposed regulations. This article further emphasizes the complexity of healthcare other than insurance and billing aspects, thereby revealing the far-reaching regulatory complexities in public health scenarios. This finding highlights the centrality of clear communication as a foundation of effective public health messages and regulations that pertain to health crises. This means making information transparent, more straightforward to understand and accessible. It should be cited in this bibliography as it can be a source of knowledge about complexity’s effect on regulatory compliance and public health outcomes.
Rollins, J. A. (2017). Healthcare: it’s’ so complicated’. Pediatric Nursing, 43(2), 58-60. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA497505707&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00979805&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E3fe84248&aty=open-web-entry
By focusing on the intricacy of healthcare, especially considering the possibility of changing the ACA, Rollins’s article brings in the issue of the shift during the transition into a new administration. The author emphasizes the difficulty of developing a solid plan to replace ACA with something more advantageous and economical. This article quotes a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that examines the likely consequences of repealing part of ACA on health insurance coverage and premiums. The report demonstrates that there could be a substantial increase in the number of uninsured people and an eventual rise in premiums paid for the individual plans purchased through an exchange or directly from the insurer; taking off the ACA provisions for coverage mandates will bring about such an effect. This thorough analysis emphasizes how healthcare policy is multidimensional and the possible outcomes if policies are kept the same.
Levitt, L., & Altman, D. (2023). The US Health Care System Complexity Is the Enemy of Access and Affordability. JAMA Health Forum, 4(10), e234430–e234430. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.4430
Levitt and Altman’s article not only outlines the consequences of the highly complex American healthcare arena for accessibility and affordability but also underscores the need to understand the causes behind its intricacies. According to their examination, consumers must deal with immense confusion and struggles when understanding health insurance plans. Through the use of survey data, the authors point out the seriousness of the challenges that many people face as they try to comprehend what is covered by their plans, which often leads to unfortunate outcomes such as delaying or postponing seeing a doctor until they are very sick thus bringing financial strain to families. The author’s approach to the reduction of complexity sounds convincing. They explain that better accessibility and affordability for all the stakeholders is possible only with the simplification of the healthcare system. This paper offers significant findings on the concrete consequences of healthcare complexity, highlighting in detail the immediate implications of the issue on individuals and the healthcare system. In this regard, it remains one of the references that should be used in the annotated bibliography since it has a good role in discussing how healthcare outcomes can be improved in the United States.
Meyer, M. A. (2023). A Patient’s Journey to Pay a Healthcare Bill: It’s Way Too Complicated – Melanie A. Meyer, 2023. Journal of Patient Experience. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23743735231174759
Meyer explores the healthcare billing processes and their vast impacts on patient journeys in this article. The case study on an elderly patient who has encountered difficulty in getting through with billing issues is used by Meyer to highlight the significant issues that patients deal with in understanding and navigating the complex health insurance billing systems. This article states that the billing process should be straightforward and pricing should be transparent, as both are necessary pillars to improving patient engagement and reducing financial burdens. Using real-life examples and applicable solutions, Meyer can create a thought-provoking analysis of the relevance of healthcare complexity to patients. This article is a very relevant contribution to the discussion regarding the impact of the healthcare billing system on the practical implications for patients. It also calls for reforms prioritizing clarity and transparency within the billing process. Therefore, it is added to this annotated bibliography for a comprehensive investigation of the problems and possible solutions.
Assessment of credibility and relevance
All chosen articles come from peer-reviewed journals, meaning they are highly quality and original. They are current, and for the study, all articles were published within the past year, which indicates that they deal with current problems in modern healthcare and nursing practice. The data given in each article stays current because the difficulties of healthcare complexity continue and progress.
Summary of learnings
Through reading and analyzing these articles, I have attained a much better comprehension of the diversified aspect of the health system’s complications and influence on the major players in the sector, such as the society, economic, and political aspects. The highlighted takeaways are the widespread problems that patients encounter with insurance plans and billing process issues and the implications of the complexity of the healthcare regulatory systems for public health. Besides that, I have developed an understanding of the ethical issues related to using technologies such as language models in healthcare provision. I gained new insights into the intricacy of healthcare and how some issues need to be handled to catch up with people’s health needs and employ best practices in care delivery.
References
Alfano, V., & Guarino, M. (2023). Why Do You Make Things So Complicated? Understanding the Texts of Regulations During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Italian Economic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40797-023-00243-5
Levitt, L., & Altman, D. (2023). The US Health Care System Complexity Is the Enemy of Access and Affordability. JAMA Health Forum, 4(10), e234430–e234430. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.4430
Meyer, M. A. (2023). A Patient’s Journey to Pay a Healthcare Bill: It’s Way Too Complicated – Melanie A. Meyer, 2023. Journal of Patient Experience. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23743735231174759
Rollins, J. A. (2017). Healthcare: it’s’ so complicated’. Pediatric Nursing, 43(2), 58-60. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA497505707&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00979805&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E3fe84248&aty=open-web-entry
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