NR 451 Week 7 Discussion Why is it important to be aware of changes in healthcare policy?
NR 451 Week 7 Discussion Why is it important to be aware of changes in healthcare policy?
NR 451 Week 7 Discussion Why is it important to be aware of changes in healthcare policy?
Please go to https//:www.white house gov/blog/2016/03/23/look-six-years-affordable-care-act to read the latest about the Affordable Care Act from the White House
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Respond to the questions below
• What are some benefits of the healthcare reform that has been prompted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA)?
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• Why is it important to be aware of changes in healthcare policy?
• Why do you believe we spend more on healthcare than any other country but have the worst outcomes?
A Sample Answer For the Assignment: NR 451 Week 7 Discussion Why is it important to be aware of changes in healthcare policy?
I have never been a proponent of The Affordable Care Act. The federal government has had “a hand” in healthcare for quite some time. The news stations constantly inform of the problems with the Veterans Administration. Knowing that the government-run “health insurance” for Veterans is done so poorly, why would anyone believe that additional government-run insurance would truly work? In looking through the healthcare Marketplace, I found very few perks.
My premium for my family of 4 would be between $13,712 yearly ($867.51/month) and $23,375 yearly ($1744.33/month). There were no subsidies available for my income bracket so, I would be responsible for the total amount. In addition, there was a deductible and copays for services and prescriptions. How is this affordable care?
The only benefits that I have seen stem from The Affordable Care Act are related to hospital accountability. “A central feature of the ACA has been the accountable care organization (ACO), the goals of which were to reduce fragmentation and inefficiency by encouraging the innovative redesign of primary health care, measuring health outcomes, and relying on physician-led expert systems and treatment pathways (Skinner and Amitabh, 2016). Healthcare facilities now face more accountability than before. Ratings of facilities are public knowledge and insurance companies can withhold claim’s payments if certain criteria are not met.
Many facets of The Affordable Care Act are concerning. Healthcare for everyone sounds like a good idea and other countries have made it work. U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective compares the U.S. to 12 countries that have universal healthcare. The results are astounding. Despite spending more on health care than any other nation, the United States ranks 23 out of 30 industrialized countries in life expectancy (American Nurses Association, 2015, p. 45).
The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates. We have the highest percentage of people over 65 years of age with two or more chronic conditions. We also have the highest obesity rate. The U.S. does have the lowest percentage of daily smokers, though. “The U.S. also had high rates of adverse outcomes from diabetes, with 17.1 lower extremity amputations per 100,000 population in 2011.
Rates in Sweden, Australia and the U.K. were less than one-third as high” (Squires & Anderson, 2015). To have a more productive system in the U.S., more research needs to be done about policies and procedures of the countries that have made it work.
“Influence on social and public policy to promote social justice reflect[s] the definition of nursing and illustrate[s] the essential features of contemporary nursing practice” (American Nurses Association, 2015, p. 49). Knowing which new policies and laws are being considered gives nurses a voice. By staying up-to-date on new policies and laws, we can be advocates of the patient’s needs.
We can also advocate for our own rights and contact our state representatives about passing bills that create safer work environments. “From 2002 to 2013, incidents of serious workplace violence (those requiring days off for the injured worker to recuperate) were four times more common in healthcare than in private industry on average. [Also,] 12 percent of emergency department nurses experienced physical violence—and 59 percent experienced verbal abuse—during a seven-day period, 2009–2011 Emergency Nurses Association survey of 7,169 nurses, [and] 13 percent of employees in Veterans Health Administration hospitals reported being assaulted in a year,2002 survey of 72,349 workers at 142 facilities” (Workplace Violence in Healthcare: Understanding the Challenge, 2015).
Being an Emergency Department Registered Nurse at a Veterans Health Administration hospital, I find these statistics to be lower than what I would have thought. I have been attacked by a patient and my life has been forever changed. Only by standing up for ourselves will we ever be able to stop the violence against healthcare workers. We must know the laws and policies that protect us and fight for enforcement of those laws.
References:
American Nurses Association. (2015). Nursing: Scope and standards of practice (3rd ed.). Silver Spring, MD: Author.
Skinner, J., & Amitabh, C. (2016). The past and future of the Affordable Care Act. JAMA, 316(5), 497-499. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.10158. http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2533697.
Squires, D., & Anderson, C. (2015, October 08). U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective. Retrieved June 14, 2017, from http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issuebriefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective
Workplace Violence in Healthcare: Understanding the Challenge. (2015, December). Retrieved October 4, 2017, from https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3826 .pdf
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I enjoyed reading your informative post. I agree that knowing new policies and laws gives us a voice. Considering workplace violence, I do not think our voice is loud enough. Unfortunately, workplace violence has always been considered part of our job in the emergency department. It is typically under reported due to the reporting process being inconsistent, nurses not knowing what actually constitutes violence, and fear of the receive response when reporting these instances.
Workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other disruptive behavior that occurs at work and may cause physical or emotional harm. Healthcare workers are at the highest risk to experience this. Emergency departments are consider high risk areas because of 24/7 access, a high-stress environment, and lack of visible or trained security. Patients and family lash out due to pain, stress, lack of privacy, and long wait times (Stene, 2015).
My question is, why do we tolerate this? This behavior would not be acceptable in any other work environment. What is it going to take for leadership to take this violence seriously? Is someone going to have to lose their life? At my facility, we get yelled at & threatened daily. Sometimes physical altercations occur. Many times our police are standing there while this occurs and they do nothing to intervene.
If they were being treated this way by an individual, they would charge them and take them to jail. There have been numerous incidents in the news recently about violence against healthcare workers, but nothing has changed. We need to take a stand. We need to aggressively advocate for ourselves and new policies and laws to protect us.
Reference
Stene, J., Larson, E., Levy, M., & Dohlman, M. (2015). Workplace Violence in the Emergency Department: Giving Staff the Tools and Support to Report. Retrieved October 11, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403590/
According to the Associated Press (2017), “During an interview with “Face the Nation” on CBS aired Sunday, President Trump said a revised bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act has a “clause that guarantees” that people with pre-existing conditions will be covered…The latest version would let states escape a requirement under Obama’s 2010 law that insurers charge healthy and seriously ill customers the same rates. The overall legislation would cut the Medicaid program for the poor, eliminate fines for people who don’t buy insurance and provide generally skimpier subsidies.
Critics have said the approach could reduce protections for people with pre-existing conditions.” I agree that their need to be some changes to the ACA, the requirement for everyone to have insurance is not necessary, or you have to pay money if you do not have the insurance. I understand that it has been helpful for the people to receive cheaper insurance but the insurance company still get to mandate the prices so their isn’t much difference than before at this point.
There are more people with insurance than their were before, but if you do not pay to have it then that should be your choice and you should not have to pay the Government for your own choice. The new changes for covering people with pre-existing conditions is much needed due to the insurance companies do not have to cover someone that is adding a secondary insurance because the have cancer.
I understand that someone can argue that if everyone is required to have the insurance then their would be no need for the insurance companies to accept the pre-existing conditions, but this can also be argued if someone is moving to another state and trying to get new insurance through their new state they live in the insurance companies can refuse to cover you because you have the pre-exiting condition of cancer.
References
Associated Press (2017, April 30). Trump says new GOP healthcare bill ‘guarantees’ coverage for pre-existing conditions. LA Times. Received from http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-updates-everything-president-trump-says-new-gop-health-care-bill-1493580454-htmlstory.html.