In the healthcare sector, numerous stakeholders must operate effectively and efficiently to bring down the cost of service delivery. Consumers now have greater say on the health issues through developments of the media and internet resources. The empowerment of consumers within the health sector is crucial to cutting down of the cost of service delivery. To lower down the cost of health care services now, numerous factors should come into play. Almost three quarters of the American patients do not take their drugs according to prescription by the health professionals. Doctors should be able to admit their faults and offer apologies to patients in the events of mistakes.
¶ … Cut Health-Care Costs Right Now
In the healthcare sector, numerous stakeholders must operate effectively and efficiently to bring down the cost of service delivery. Health sector consists of seven key players or stakeholders. The first groups of stakeholders are the service providers. Providers consist of members of the American Medical Association (Physicians, Nurses, and Hospitals or Health organizations). This group occupies the largest share of the health sector since it comprises of professionals to ensure well being of the society. The second group of stakeholders is insurers. Insurers aim at controlling the cost of health services within the nation. They majorly operate under the influence of Health Insurance Association of America. The third stakeholder is consumer. Consumers now have greater say on the health issues through developments of the media and internet resources.
The empowerment of consumers within the health sector is crucial to cutting down of the cost of service delivery. The fourth stakeholders in health issues are business groups. Business groups come into play since they are responsible to the financing of the health sector through remuneration of taxes and sponsorships. The fifth stakeholders are labor or employees entity. Labor affects the direction of cost of health care services by formation and developments of unions. These unions fight for the rights of their employees. The other groups of stakeholders are pharmaceutical industry. They contribute through development and administration of drugs. The seventh group of stakeholders is the public health. This is through the involvement of the America Public Health Association. The association focuses on enhancement of health and prevention of diseases among the citizens.
In order to lower down the cost of health care services now, numerous factors should come into play. The first approach to lowering down the cost is extensive crackdown on fraud and abuse. According to research by the FBI agency, it is clear that fraud and unaccountability within the health sector accounts to approximately 10% of the total cost of service delivery. Majority of dealings within the health sectors has some elements of fraud thus increasing the cost of service delivery. Insurers and other stakeholders should also act towards minimization of the fraud before it hits the health sector. This attempt would reduce the burden on the taxpayers by ensuring that their money is in significant use within the health sector. The eventual outcome of reduction of fraud would be minimal cost of service delivery (Arnst, 2009).
The second attempt to reduce the cost of healthcare service is the development of a healthy workforce. Business entities and companies should focus on building healthy workforces though enrolment in health programs. Employees should focus on effective and efficient health programs to enable them reap the benefits in the form of health discounts. Employees can also obtain insurance benefits in relation to health programs thus encouragement of savings within the economy. Effective and efficient health programs have the essence of reducing the cost of healthcare services (Wong, 2009).
The third attempt in reducing the cost of healthcare service revolves around coordination of health services by the use of family doctors. This would enable patients to avoid the risk of double prescription of drugs. Patients should focus on directives from one doctor in the process of seeking medical attention. This would reduce the cost of obtaining healthcare services by the patients thus lowering down the total cost within the health sector. Invention of home-based doctors could help bring down the cost of healthcare (Wong, 2009).
The other approach revolves around minimization of infections in the process of treating patients. Patients suffer from infections due to ineffective health measures within the hospitals and other health organizations. These infections incur extra cost on patients who seek further treatment to solve the problems. Effective and efficient preventive measures during treatment should enable doctors and nurses to minimize chances of infections. This would help reduce the cost of healthcare services since patients would save the amount they would rather have spent treating infections.
Almost three quarters of the American patients do not take their drugs according to prescription by the health professionals. This trend makes most of the drugs to go into waste hence increasing the cost on the consumers or patients. In order to minimize the cost of health services, it is critical to encourage patients to take their medicine. This should supplement efforts to encourage patients on the effectiveness of their prescriptions. Taking medicine by the patients is one of the best moves towards enhancing healthcare services while maximizing the benefits for every dollar on medication (Lavizzo-Mourey, 2009).
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