Analyzing Health Care Cost

Health Care Cost and Quality Analysis
Introduction
Healthcare is significantly costly within the United States. Recent research studies have indicated that there is no correlation between health care cost and quality. For instance, despite the fact that there has been a significant increase in spending in the United States, the per capita spending projections are just about 200 percent higher compared to other developed nations. Regardless being top globally in terms of costs, the U.S is ranked 26th with respect to life expectancy and is also poorly rates on other healthcare quality indicators (Burke and Ryan, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to analyze one public agency and one private agency, delineate their roles and major activities in addressing cost and quality in healthcare, their current and projected initiatives and the implications they have for nursing.
Roles and Major Activities in Addressing Cost and Quality
Different agencies in the United States play different roles in addressing cost and quality in healthcare. The selected public agency is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services whereas the selected private agency is National Coalition on Health Care. National Coalition on Health Care is a partnership and alliance of groups working to accomplish wide-ranging health system reform. The agency has a role of devotion to building a nationwide bipartite agreement in favor of representation and execution of sustainable, universal, and system-wide healthcare reform. NCHC’s mission is centered on five codependent principles creating a context for enhancing the health care system of America including cost management, health care coverage for all, enhancement of healthcare quality and safety, evenhanded financing and streamlined administration (NCHC, 2018). On the other hand, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a state agency contained within the United States Department of Health and Human Services with the role of administering Medicare program and undertakings in tandem with the state governments in order to run and oversee different healthcare programs such as Medicaid and health insurance portability benchmarks (CMS, 2018).
Current and Projected Initiatives
Both of these agencies are linked to prevailing and projected initiatives purposed to improve quality while at the same time controlling costs. One of the key initiatives undertaken by CMS is referred to the Meaningful Measures agenda. Imperatively, this initiative ascertains the topmost significances for quality measurement and improvement. It takes into account solely examining those core problems that are the most pivotal to offering high-quality care and augmenting individual results. Meaningful Measurement Areas are the linkages between CMS Strategic Goals and distinct measures or initiatives that make evident the manner in which high quality results for patients are being attained. They are material quality topics which mirror fundamental issues that are most essential to high quality care and improved patient outcomes, and can involve packets of associated measures (CMS, 2018). On the other hand, one of the key initiatives undertaken by NCHC is the preservation and improvement of Medicaid and CHIP. Notably, one in four citizens in America is dependent on Medicaid to cater to their medical, behavioral and longstanding healthcare. On the other hand, the CHIP program provides kids with healthcare coverage that costs less and renders more than other substitute sources of coverage. Taking this into consideration, the National Coalition on Health Care advocates for chasing bipartisan Medicaid innovation and reform and precludes the interference of accessibility and coverage to healthcare (NCHC, 2018).
Implications for Nursing
The aforementioned initiatives do have implications for staff nurses together with advanced practice nurses, in addition to evidence-based practice, that is associated to quality and cost. The meaningful measures initiative makes use a sequence that cuts across criteria that will be applicable to each quality measure and provide guidance in the eradication of lower value quality measures across Centers of Medicare and Medicaid programs while sustaining measures that have fewer encumbrances and are most significant with the greatest effect on patient results. The implication of this is that it will permits nurses and providers of healthcare with the capability to lay emphasis on their patients and augment quality of cares in manners that are meaningful to them rather than reporting and form-filling (CMS, 2018). Moreover, meaningful measures emphasize healthcare quality endeavors on what is largely significant to patients, households and caregivers including making knowledgeable and well-versed decisions regarding their care, bringing into line care the patient’s goals and their inclinations and refining quality of life and patient outcomes. The implication of this initiative is that it expands the eligibility of Medicaid to adults generating low-income, provision of high quality and increased healthcare coverage to children at reduced cost and also the reduction of medical costs.
Conclusion
Healthcare continues to be a significant aspect and area of deliberation within the United States. Specifically, research has indicated that there is no direct relationship between increased cost of healthcare and improved quality of care. However, several establishments and agency continue to make significant endeavors to diminish the cost incurred for health care and improving the quality. This paper discusses the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid and National Coalition on Health Care, which are implementing the Meaningful Measures and the preservation and improvement of Medicaid and CHIP initiatives respectively. In conclusion, these initiatives impact both nurses and patients through evidence-based care. This is through increased quality of the healthcare rendered and also the guarantee of incessant accessibility and coverage to healthcare.






References
Burke, L. A., Ryan, A. M. (2014). The complex relationship between cost and quality in US Healthcare. Virtual Mentor Volume 16, Number 2: 124-130.
CMS. (2018). About CMS. Retrieved from: https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/About-CMS.html
CMS. (2018). Meaningful Measures Hub. Retrieved from: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/QualityInitiativesGenInfo/MMF/General-info-Sub-Page.html#Stakeholder%20Impact
NCHC. (2018). About Us. Retrieved from: https://nchc.org/about-us/
NCHC. (2018). Preserving and Improving Medicaid and CHIP. Retrieved from: https://nchc.org/policy/preserving-and-improving-medicaid-and-chip/