Universal Health Care: A policy meant to help adopt Primary Based Health Care System in the United States.
This policy document outlines the universalhealth care coverage in the United States through a strategic system of comprehensive and diversified primary healthcare.The policy provisions mandate the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and its Management Board with the obligation of advocacy inensuring flexibility while focusing on factors that arise before federal and state governments and the American citizens(AAFP, 2013). It does this by prioritizing universal health care coverage objectives. In essence, this aim is typically founded on AAFP policy, which primarily states health is an essential universal human right, which also incorporates universal access to quality, timely and cost-effectivehealth care.
The health policy is specifically implemented through various programs such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and federal regulations like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.). These provisions increase access to cost-effective universal health care involvingthe previously uninsured, non-Medicare eligible populations in equal measure. The uninsured population has been recorded to reach as low as 8.8% due to the implementation of these policy strategies (National Health Council, 2017). Universal health coverage has indiscriminately taken place across all social classes from the vulnerable people groups to middle- and high-income earners (Rao et al. 2019).The health care policy is also designed to consider and address social factors that cause imminent effects on the community’s population health constituents and costs, such as socioeconomic status, housing, and occupational factors, food security, and the environment, and help to control and regulate them at standard levels. According to Commonwealth Fund, the design policy is aimed at provision ofuniversal health care coverage; this will consequently help the monetary firm to have profound impacts on its ability to make strategic and long-term developments in access to equal and quality health care in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
Thehealth system policy is designed to achieve universal health care coverage by setting its main objective to be primary care by revitalizingthe latter’s infrastructure and redesigning the way by which primary care is relegated and methods of payments.The primary care activities restructure the modes of operation to be more accessible, enhances prevention, immediate response, and support tovictims of chronic diseases. It involves patients in self-care and decision-making, to ensure quality health care quality along with the cost-effective rates of health care.. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The universal health care policy takes into account family therapy and primary care, which involves nursing care for continued care for the whole recovery of the patient. The patient and primary health care professional interaction and its outline should be considered before implementation as it results in imminent impacts on health care outcomes and costs over a long period of time.
The universal health care policy is interrelated to a Medicare Modernization state legislation of 2003 (Edmunds et al. 2015). This act initiates a mode of payment enhancement for low- capacity health facilities, which are situated on more than 25 road miles away from another health facility and has an accommodation of less than 800 accumulative outpatient clients. These health facilities operate under this act as they cannot achieve the high economies and diverse scope of large capacity hospitals. As such, they tend to incur higher expenses on every outpatient service, as they can record an increase of about 25% in their I.P.P.S. payments based upon volume.
The universal healthcare policy proposes an essential change that repurposes the objectives of the U.S.U.S. health system to a one that involves all people and stresses on comprehensive and regulated primary care (Martinez, King & Cauchi, 2016). The available materials should beallotted in a diverse and even mannerand accordingly disbursed to achieve the specified goals. The payment provision in the policy, for instance, demands that all expenses must change to indicate a considerable investment in primary care to fully support and sustain primary care transition and delivery. Workforce policies must be addressed to ensure a strong cadre of the family physicians and other primary care physicians who are so integral to a high-functioning health care team. Congress and/or state legislatures must enact comprehensive legislation to achieve this change. If such legislation only addresses the uninsured and fails to fundamentally restructure the system to promote and pay differently and better for family medicine and primary care, any solution will not reach its full potential to achieve the Quadruple Aim of better care, better health, smarter spending, and a more efficient and satisfying physician workforce.
Federal, state, and private funding for graduate medical education will be reformed to establish and achieve a national physician workforce policy that produces a primary care physician workforce sufficient to meet the nation’s health care needs. Additionally, U.S.U.S. medical schools will be held to a higher standard in regard to producing the nation’s needed primary care physician workforce.
To achieve health care coverage for all, the AAFP involves; A Medicare/Medicaid buy-in approach, which builds upon existing public programs by allowing individuals to purchase health care coverage through these programs. Payments: The AAFP believes all primary care physicians should be compensated in a manner that is consistent with the AAFP’s comprehensive payment model for family medicine and primary care, the Advanced Primary Care Alternative Payment Model (APC-APM)(AAFP, 2013). The AAFP believes the APC-APM is a foundational element of greater investment in primary care that is essential to a better system of care in the United States.
The model builds on previous programs and years of research showing the benefits of moving away from fee-for-service (FFS) payment and increased support for population-based care. It better supports small and independent practices and reduces administrative burden in the health for any health care system to achieve its goals, and there will be a need for greater investment in primary care(Edmunds et al. 2015). The AAFP strongly supports increased investment in primary care as part of any U.S.U.S. health care system.
The patient-centered medical home (P.C.M.H.) is a design used in the universal healthcare policy to deliver comprehensive, advanced primary care (A.P.C.) for all people groups in the community. This strategy of health care facilitates the relationship betweenthe patient, the patient’s doctor, andthe patient’s family or nursing care. The patient has continuous interaction with their nursing care personnel and doctor who are specialized in delegating initial and comprehensive care(AAFP, 2013). The physician and nursing care are responsible for continuous care and eventual recovery of patients. The medical personnel is also ethically responsible for maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of patient information; they are not supposed to disclose any patient information to third parties without the consent of the patient unless under the circumstances provided for in federal, state, or medical laws and regulations. The nurses are obliged to offer physical and spiritual support to the patient by encouraging them based on their beliefs. Emotional health is considered significant in enhancing physical health. A registered nurse is therefore responsible to source out information and encouraging and inspiring words to enrich the patient’s emotional health based on their faith.
Advocacy strategiesto ensure access to the benefits of the policy involve(A.M.A., 2020):
Mobilizing for adequate funding of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and retain Medicaid increment and implement the expansion in more states.
Lobbying for stabilization of individual insurance marketplaces and retain A.C.A. market reforms. Advocacy for this response helps to foster a stronger health insurance marketplace and ensure that low- and moderate-income patients can secure affordable and adequate coverage
Address medical workforce insufficiency. Grow the clinical workforce by expanding the number of available graduate medical education residency slots, expand medical school loan-forgiveness programs, and remove barriers to physician immigration for foreign-trained physicians to practice in the U.SU.S.
Increase efficiency of the existing workforce by instituting common-sense medical liability reforms and reducing government and insurance industry regulatory burdens—such as prior authorization—that detract from patient care and increase costs.
Instituting telehealth and remote patient care. This is an essential, cost-effective, and reliable means to expand capacity in a health system marked by significant and persistent specialty shortages and geographic disparities. Physicians should get assurances that digital health solutions are cost-effective and provide a path to payment.
References.
American Medical Association (A.M.A.)(2020). Five ways to improve access to health care. Retrieved 3 March 2020, from https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support- advocacy/5-ways-improve-access-health-care.
American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). (2013). Health care for all: A framework for moving to a primary care-based health care system in the United States.
Edmunds M, Sloan FA, Steinwald AB, National Academies of Sciences (U.S.U.S.); (2015). Committee on Geographic Adjustment Factors in Medicare Payment; Board on Health Care Services; Institute of Medicine;
Martinez, J. C., King, M. P., & Cauchi, R. (2016). Improving the health care system: seven-state strategies. National Conference of State Legislatures.
Rao, K. D., Makimoto, S., Peters, M., Leung, G. M., Bloom, G., & Katsuma, Y. (2019). Vulnerable Populations and Universal Health Coverage. Leave No One Behind: Time for Specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals.
National Health Council. (2017). Policy Proposals for Reducing Health Care Costs. Retrieved 3 March 2020, from https://nationalhealthcouncil.org/policy-proposals-for-reducing-health- care-costs/
U.S.U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2017). Retrieved 3 March 2020, from ttps://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/Reforming-Americas-Healthcare-System-Through- choice-and-Competition.pdf