REFORMS

Future Reform of the Health Care System-Financial Operating Changes for Improvement in Efficiency and Transparency

Future Reform of the Health Care System-Financial Operating Changes for Improvement in Efficiency and Transparency

Introduction

The health care system has elicited much debate in recent times, particularly in the United States. Specifically, efforts to increase coverage have not addressed the inadequate reimbursement rates for physicians, which have sparked many contemptuous debates. The most controversial aspect of the health care bill seems to be the unprecedented mandate for all Americans to purchase health insurance. Within this mandate lies the “minimum essential coverage”, this coverage is either purchased by the government, employer or the individual (Davis 2007).

The health care is defined as a government system that provides for the basic health care needs of a specific population in a given political entity. In such a system, the primary care physician acts as a “gatekeeper” responsible for making decisions regarding primary care and referrals. In addition, all population should have guaranteed access to hospitalization and prescription medicine (Cornelius et al. 2001).

Discussion

The reforms of health care affect the well-being of everyone regardless of whether they have adequate health coverage or not. The reform is intended primarily for better coordination and controllability of the system of health care. The measures listed below have a double objective: improve the quality of the health system and preserve certain existing strengths of the system of health care, in particular the appearance of solidarity; contribute to the spending growth (Berk et al. 2005). The concept of "primary care" should be central to the reform of the organization of health care services. This name refers to the organization of community care systems and concepts of primary care, accessibility, holistic care, continuity of ongoing care in relation to other sectors.

The reform to improve coordination between the institutions that manage patient information would improve the quality of care, including through information sharing and electronic prescribing, or direct access to the prescriber, provider or pharmacist to certain data file shared care with patient's agreement. Although not a "single patient record," the shared care record is rather a platform for networking of information that is shared by the various holders of medical data (Bindman 2005).

The budget of the hospital should no longer be negotiated individually. Reform plans to introduce an overall budget to be set by the government based on multi-year planning. The introduction of a global budget is a further step towards a common governance of the hospital sector to avoid duplication and competition between institutions and to better target areas of development for the health care system as a whole (Chasin et al. 2011).

Cost accounting, which was managed by hospitals, should be entrusted to the National Health Fund. This will allow comparisons between the financial activities of the various hospital services. In the long term, it is planned to carry out cost accounting in each patient, to assess the cost of care. Further efforts should be made to realize synergies between hospitals for administrative and logistical ...