Health care marketplace Essays

Health care marketplace Essays Health care marketplace Paper Health care marketplace Paper The healthcare industry is designed to meet the needs of many individuals in terms of their wellbeing. The approach or intervention would be preventive, curative, and soothing to persons who require such. It is also the collaboration of medical technology and human contact to address and tend to the health conditions of millions of people from the newborn to the elderly and the critically ill. Establishments providing healthcare normally function round-the-clock enduring even the harshest of conditions. â€Å"There are about 600,000 establishments that make up the health care industry; they vary greatly in terms of size, staffing patterns, and organizational structures.   Nearly 80% of health care establishments are offices of health practitioners. Although hospitals and hospices only comprise only 2% of all healthcare establishments, nevertheless they employ 35% of all workers; nursing and residential care facilities employ close to 24%, and other ambulatory health care services employ 20%.† (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics) One renowned economist and author of The Health Care Marketplace, Dr. Warren Greenberg, emphasized about the competition of the business that â€Å"[competition] among physicians takes place locally among primary care physicians and on a wider geographical scale among specialists.†[1] Examples of the said competition would be between psychiatrists and psychologists; obgyne and infectious doctors. Furthermore, regarding competition between â€Å"physicians in a fee-for-service practice and those in managed care plans†, he mentions statistics and researches that were â€Å"lesser utilization of healthcare services, such as hospitalization and tests, with managed care plans.†[2] What are then the factors that affect the economics of the healthcare business? The identified factors are location, professional demeanor or behavior, and waiting time. To explain about the professional demeanor a concrete example to this is the behavior or conduct of surgeons in the big city compared to rural surgeons. Undoubtedly, doctors from the urban areas charge more than those in small town areas. â€Å"This demeanor has direct implications on the cost, options, services, and fees in the medical field, and also relationship to doctor education ad government funding for public health.†[3] There are factors that influence the cost of individual treatment. Physicians and doctors are one of the factors and they also cause an effect over the services and assets of hospitals and health care establishments. It is also identified that there are two main market perspectives in the healthcare industry; free market competition and government regulation. The latter is the most preferred of many individuals since they view it as a right rather than a privilege. There have been issuances of medicare programs where the poor and the elderly were given the opportunity to avail of the services in the healthcare industry. But is also a fact that some of the services rendered under the government-subsidized healthcare system lack the quality of service that patients deserve. In fact, critics of government regulation stress out its inefficiency. Then there came the rise of free-market competition. There are many identified reasons for the rise of the cost on healthcare: â€Å"Increase public expectations. New and expensive technology. The belief that healthcare is right. Competition between hospitals, resulting in duplication of technology and other services. The dissociation between cost of service and payee due to third party payers (insurances).†[4] Nonetheless, there is a means of lowering the cost of healthcare and that is coming up with new mechanisms in the implementation of healthcare services that are based on market trends and situations and this would also include the proper budgeting for the said services. Furthermore, it is needed that there is a revision of the practice for different related health professionals to allow them to be in private practice, â€Å"to accept patients without physicians’ referral and with government mandated third party insurance reimursability.†[5] Sources: Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books. Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html Melillo, K (1994). Preparing and Preparing Testimony, Guidelines for the Health Care Practitioner Nurse. Patel, K, Rushefshy, M (1995). Health Care Politics and Policy in America. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc. Bauer, J (1994). What the Doctor Ordered: Reinventing Medical Care in Amreica . Chicago: Probus Publishing. Enthoven, A (1993). Achieving Effective Cost Control in Comprehensive Health Care Reform. Health PAC Bulletin, 13-15. [1] Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books.   [2] Greenberg, W. (2002). The Health Care Marketplace. Beard Books. [3] Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html [4]Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html [5] Healthcare Index. Retrieved June 16, 2009, from alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/index.html Web site: alternative-medicine.net/healthcare/market.perspectives.html