Federal Healthcare Law Reform
In the US, healthcare reform has proven a contentious and divisive topic. Healthcare system reform focuses on establishing goals, improving policies, and changing the structures that support the implementation of policies. It also addresses fairness, effectiveness, quality, finance, and sustainable settings in healthcare delivery. It aims to lower the number of people without insurance while lowering costs and raising treatment standards. Health reforms that occur in health systems throughout the globe differ based on various national characteristics in the perspective of global health.
All American households will eventually have affordable coverage for the medical care they require. The wellness and sense of security that follows it is the most significant result of the health care reform law. An overwhelming percentage of the American population considers healthcare a fundamental necessity that should be available to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, religion, age, financial condition, or any other demographic feature (Mitrasevic et al., 2020). The creation of appropriate legislation that specifies how such service should be funded is still a significant problem. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, referred to as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 or Obamacare), is the latest healthcare legislation to be enacted in the U. S. (Buckley, 2020). President Trump proposed the American Health Care Act after taking office; however, it could not pass both chambers. As a result, he issued Executive Directive 13813, which aimed to restructure most of the ACA’s definitions for delivering health protection ad care (Buckley, 2020). The legislation includes several rights and safeguards that make health insurance more equitable and understandable, as well as financial compensation (cost-sharing reductions and tax credits ) to improve access to it.
The present federal regulations put in place by the current administration have a significant impact on nursing care as well as the duties and obligations of nurses. According to Hung et al. (2019), a nurse’s job is to care for and assist patients regardless of their financial situation. Some people may be unable to afford medical care due to the new legislation. Such circumstances could make it more difficult for nurses to do their jobs, forcing them to deny patients the care they need. Medical homes have been put into place with the assistance of nurses at all levels of practice. Nurses must use ACA laws that support nursing students to attract and keep enough medical practitioners to cater to the growing patient population using healthcare services.
It is still essential to lower medical costs in the US. The cost of healthcare in 2017 was $3.5 trillion, approximately $10,739 per individual (PWC, 2018). This amounts to 17.9% of the GDP (PWC, 2018). ACA objectives have seen some progress, but problems still exist. Medical expense trends have dropped from 9% (2010) to an anticipated 6% (2019). According to PwC, the cost of healthcare will keep growing in 2019 due to expanded access to treatment, operator megamergers, and physician aggregation and recruitment. (PwC, 2018). One of the goals of the ACA was to enhance access to care, which initially raised expenses. However, as the focus of healthcare moves to prevention, it is anticipated that increasing access to treatment would result in lower long-term healthcare expenditures. Healthcare agency megamergers reduce prospects for price and service competitiveness. Healthcare organizations engage more doctors as a consequence of doctor employment aggregation. In contrast to private practice, this often raises the price of medical services. (PwC, 2018). The client viewpoint has been directly influenced by partnerships between APRNs and healthcare programs or physicians, which allows APRNs to exercise within the scope of their learning. Nursing leaders have also made optimal use of resources by employing their knowledge of patient route planning and medical system incorporation.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has enabled more individuals, particularly low-income individuals and persons of color, to obtain medical care and reduced the percentage of uninsured to an all-time low. Given the enormity of the medical system, it is challenging to predict how the legislation will affect the price and quality of medical services. Particularly concerning the law’s eligibility and access requirements, the execution of the ACA has undergone significant, unanticipated changes and alterations. The partisan rivalry has thwarted further attempts by Congress to enhance the ACA. The ACA has been administered with a great deal of regional flexibility, which has led to variation in how the legislation has impacted individuals throughout the nation. The cost of attempts to repeal or invalidate important ACA provisions is rising. If the Supreme Court declares the ACA unlawful, the American health system would be severely disrupted, and millions of people may lose their medical insurance. The ACA has brought the number of Americans without health insurance to historic lows, but its fate is still unclear.
Pay for performance and quality measures influence on patient outcome
Patient outputs are significantly impacted by performance-based compensation and quality metrics. Jacobs and Skocpol (2016) assert that when a medical institution prioritizes providing high-quality care, its clients will receive the highest-quality care possible. How patients are treated, and the timing of service delivery are two examples of factors that will improve. Pay for performance generally has a positive effect on medical employee satisfaction. It gives them the impression that their work is valued. Nursing practice is impacted by quality metrics and pay for performance. They outline the customs that a company adopts when providing care for patients. In order to fulfill their principal responsibility and duty of providing protection and care, nursing staff anticipates the leadership of the organizations for which they work to embrace and ensure better assurance policies and equitable compensation plans. Nevertheless, it is crucial to remember that these medical facilities require a steady stream of funding to remain operational. Patients might be compelled to find other means of funding such services if the authority cannot cover their healthcare demands through adequate health insurance.
Roles in Competent Nursing Management and Leadership
Adjustments lately proposed to reform and reorganize the US healthcare provision sector have resulted in new nurse managerial and leadership roles due to the rising difficulties. Kimuyu (2016) says that nurses are obtaining a new function of becoming counselors in facilities of care. In delivering quality healthcare and improving patient safety in varied settings, nurses engage with individuals more frequently than any other medical provider. Even so, they are obligated to handle patients’ financial issues. Some sometimes worry that they might be denied medical care due to insufficient insurance coverage. Buckley (2020) states that an individual’s mental health may impact their ability to recuperate from a specific disease. Nurses must assume a new stance in ensuring these clients’ complaints will be handled. They may need to display leadership by assisting these people in discovering means of funding their medical expenditures. The additional tasks may not be adequately delineated in the core function of a caregiver, but they are crucial in reacting to emerging dynamics in the healthcare industry. As new rules develop, nurses are pushed to reinterpret their function within the medical industry. Alongside offering therapies, they now need to consider patient populations’ financial and emotional requirements under the latest federal laws.
Emerging Trends
As a logical result of the new and evolving state and federal care legislation, new trends are developing in the medical field. Executive Directive 13813 has raised the relative cost of healthcare, particularly for low-income Americans, as Buckley (2020) noted. The increased function of serving as therapists for fiscally distressed patients is one of the significant changes in the nursing profession that has been seen. In response to impending advances in healthcare, this function may evolve into one of the essential services that nursing staff must provide over the following decades. Another significant change anticipated is that nursing staff will start advising people on the best types of medical coverage. The vast majority of patients, especially individuals from the middle income, are unaware of the most delicate coverings they may use, as Kimuyu (2018) notes. A sizeable portion of the populace used the ACA of 2010’s guidelines for government-sponsored initiatives. Nurses now have a new responsibility: assisting patients in obtaining adequate coverage from several organizations providing the same.
References
Buckley, J. F. (2020). Mandated benefits 2019 compliance guide (IL). Wolters Kluwer.
Hung, M. S., Lam, S. K., & Chow, M. C. (2019). Nursing students’ experiences of mental health first aid training: A qualitative descriptive study. Collegian, 26(5), 534-540.
Jacobs, L. R., & Skocpol, T (2016). The health care reform and American politics: What everyone needs to know (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Kimuyu, P. (2016). Impact of the US healthcare reform on various levels. GRIN Verlag.
Mitrasevic, M., Radovanovic, S., Radevic, S., Maricic, M., Macuzic, I. Z., & Kanjevac, T. (2020). The unmet healthcare needs: evidence from Serbia. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 49(9), 1650.
PricewaterhouseCooper [PwC]. (2018). Medical cost trends: Behind the numbers 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/health-industries/health-research-institute/assets/pdf/hri-behind-the-numbers-2019.pdf
write