Performance of Health Care - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

Any organization's financial performance and position are critical in determining its ability to sustain its product and enhance its owners' wealth. An organization experiencing negative and diminishing financial returns faces the risk of turning bankrupt, which hinders its ability to sustain service delivery. Equally, the wealth of the shareholders will be hurt, forcing them to withdraw their capital investment. Various financial factors influence the performance of diverse organizations in different industries. The version of health care is one of the sectors that are highly influenced by multiple economic factors. Accordingly, the research paper has evaluated the various factors that influence the performance of the healthcare sector.

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Finding Fund Sources

The critical factor determining health care performance is the source of the funds involved in financing its operations. The fund's inception is essential in determining the health care industry's performance since it influences service delivery sustainability. The health care sector's current version has been on a declining trend in America due to the current administration's policy change. The changes that have been undertaken by the present Trump in financing the health care sector have affected its performance adversely due to a lack of adequate resources. The Trump administration's decision to reverse the Obamacare plan had a devastating effect on the healthcare industry's performance (Jost, 2018). The action had the effect of affecting the proportion of the population covered negatively. The Trump administration proposal meant that a significant proportion of the people could not access the care service due to their disadvantaged financial position.

Reimbursement Methods

The reimbursement methods imply the healthcare organizations' approach to demanding revenue from the clients served or waiting for service. Healthcare organizations' various reimbursement methods include a fee for service (FFS), episode-based payment, and capitation. The service approach's price approaches price entails paying for the services depending on the services offered. Thus, the total cost will depend on the pricing strategy that has been employed by the provider. In contrast, the episode-based pricing approach entails pricing the services offered based on clinically defined cases (Mohammad, 2014). This aspect implies that a given service's cost is determined by its categorization but not the process.

The last aspect of capitation implies a provider's payment to cover the specified population for a given period (Thiels et al., 2016). Thus, the approach does not cater to the nature of the operation or time incurred in determining the cost allocated in offering the medical services to a patient but the agreed period. Accordingly, the diverse reimbursement methods affect the health care providers due to the ability of revenue collection and maximization of revenue collection.

The episode-based payment method implies that a healthcare organization's capacity to serve the population it targets will depend on the prevalence level. A low prevalence level of the ailment being targeted by the given healthcare organization or agency implies that the funds received will be insufficient in offering the required services. (Eriksson, Tropp, Wiréhn, & Levin, 2020) The healthcare organization will be forced to stall some services or close its operations due to an insufficient supply of financial resources. In contrast, the functions of the organization will remain as consumers seek for services increase.

The capitation approach also depicts that the healthcare sector will suffer if the volume of the services overrides the importance of the patients that had been anticipated. The organization will be forced to cater to the excess cost beyond the realized revenue. The government has recognized health care as a right, which obligates any healthcare organization to serve any patient irrespective of society's status. In contrast, a higher capitation than the volume of the consumers did affect the performance of the healthcare organization.

Economic Factor

A given country's economic position determines the healthcare sector's performance due to its effect on the availability of resources and access to health services. A deteriorating economy has been observed to harm the healthcare sector's performance due to people's inability to access care services. Additionally, unprivileged society sections are denied access to health access due to economic disadvantages (Xesfingi & Vozikis, 2016). Moreover, empirical studies indicate that the health performance of different countries depends on their financial position. Countries with low economic development experience inadequate health care performance due to a high rate of incapable of accessing essential services.

Business Influence

Business influence has a significant factor in determining the performance of the healthcare sector. The pharmaceutical businesses have been blamed for advancing a profit and revenue maximization interest over the patients' welfare. The commercial interest has become a critical issue in determining the quality of the health service offered by diverse healthcare organizations (Eriksson, Tropp, Wiréhn, & Levin, 2020). The growing interest of pharmaceutical companies interested in maximizing their profits has compromised the quality of the service offered to clients.

Cost Containment

Health cost has been increasing exponentially over the past years, threatening the profitability of the sector. Equally, the expanding cost of health has seen impoverished missing out of access to the service, which hurt their constitutional right (Xesfingi & Vozikis, 2016). Accordingly, cost containment strategies are adopted by healthcare organizations to enhance their performance and customers’ accessibility of the service. One of the cost containment measures undertaken is undertaking technology investment. Technology has the effect of reducing healthcare costs due to some operations' automation, which helps reduce labor costs (Mohammad, 2014). Similarly, technology enables healthcare organizations to offer telemedicine services. Telemedicine entails offering care through electronic platforms.

A healthcare organization can shift some overhead costs such as meals and essential person protection equipment costs to employees to reduce the cost incurred. Similarly, nurses play a crucial role in the management of operating costs. The nursing department is responsible for ensuring that the costs incurred are within the established budget line (Thiels et al., 2016). This role ensures that the organization is not exposed to unmanageable costs. Similarly, nurses play the role of ensuring efficient services are offered to patients that is vitalis vital in reducing wastages and maximizing revenue generation. Consequently, nurses are instrumental players in the healthcare organization’s cost management efforts.

Conclusion

The research study that has been conducted demonstrates that diverse factors influence the healthcare sector's performance. The factors identified in the research indicate that they affect the quality of the service offered to the clients. The performance of the health care sector, as demonstrated by the research study, is influenced by the availability of the financial resources facilitating the allocation of supporting resources. Consequently, policymakers should pay close attention to economic, reimbursement, and funding sources to sustain the survival and performance of the healthcare sector.

References

Eriksson, T., Tropp, H., Wiréhn, A. B., & Levin, L. Å. (2020). A pain relieving reimbursement program? Effects of a value-based reimbursement program on patient reported outcome measures. BMC Health Services Research, 20(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05578-8

Mohammad, A. (2014). Factors Affecting Medical Service Quality. Journal of Public Health, 43(2), 210-220. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450689/

Jost, T. (2018). The Affordable Care Act under the Trump Administration. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2018/affordable-care-act-under-trump-administration

Thiels, C. A., Hanson, K. T., Yost, K. J., Zielinski, M. D., Habermann, E. B., & Cima, R. R. (2016). Effect of hospital case mix on the hospital consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems star scores. Annals of surgery, 264(3), 666-673. 10.1097/sla.0000000000001847 10.1097/sla.0000000000001847

Xesfingi, S., & Vozikis, A. (2016). Patient satisfaction with the healthcare system: assessing the impact of socio-economic and healthcare provision factors. BMC health services research, 16(1), 1-7.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1327-4.