Increasing Cost Of Being Uninsured

Health providers across America are using Electronic Health Records systems to keep up with patient’s health information. Long hours of filing and writing patients health information manually has become a thing of the past. The Electronic Health Record system, known as EHRs, has changed how patients and health providers communicate as a whole. It has taken information technology to a different spectrum, and has helped patients become more aware of their health history and health conditions. Throughout the years, EHRs systems have been crucially ridicule in the medical world, due to lack of knowledge, high expenses, and apprehension among health providers. Because there will always be challenges when new technology starts to expand in any type of establishment. I believe that EHRs serves a great purpose in health care despite its delays.

Rising health insurance premiums have made healthcare unaffordable in the United States. Health insurance premiums in this country have undergone a steady rise over the past few years while incomes have remained the same. More than 50% of individuals with low incomes holding private insurance in the United States are unable to afford their healthcare costs (Collins, Gunja, Doty & Buetel, 2015). In addition, costs related to healthcare are equally unaffordable to 25% of working-age individuals who hold private health insurance policies (Collins et al., 2015). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) survey on employer health benefits, employer-sponsored health insurance plans have also had moderate rises in premiums in 2013 for both individuals and family coverage (Claxton et al., 2013). While

We live in the United States, “The Land of the Brave and Home of the Free.” However, the United States is the only developed country that does not provide guaranteed insurance coverage for all citizens and they’re thereby doing not ensure access to health services (Government hub, n.d.). Meaning other countries offer health coverage without cost. This always disappointed me because America is the richest, and most unequal, country (Sherman, 2015). So why wouldn’t America provide American’s health care insurance (McAlearney, 2003, p. 20). Since the United States does not provide universal health care coverage, we will discuss briefly forms of insurance offered to Americans, the categories of insurance and how individuals qualify for coverage and Affordable Healthcare Act (Obama Care).

The cost of healthcare in America is out of control. As the medical costs continue to rise, many Americans, especially those considered low income, have decided to just live uninsured. Low income families are considered individuals, who make less than $15,521 a year and families of 4 members, who make $31,721 or less in a year (2). As of 2013, 10.8 million were listened as low income households in America, which is a 18.6% rise from the previous survey (2). Basically, these families can not afford to pay for private medical insurance. As a matter of fact, there are 70 million people covered under the federal Medicare and

The healthcare industry is in the midst of a major change from paper based medical record keeping to electronic medical record keeping. As part of the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 2014). HITECH is the U.S. Government’s first major contribution to the change from paper to electronic health information technology by setting meaningful use incentive program for Medicare and Medicaid providers that met certain requirements. Healthcare professionals that meet the meaningful use criteria will be awarded financially, and those that don’t meet the 2015 guideline will be penalized. We live in an electronic world of instant access to information and by adopting health information technology we give providers better and easier access to more information which in turn allows them to make a more informed diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. The electronic health record (EHR) is part of the new information technology. According to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (2014.), EHR’s provide many benefits such as improvement in the quality of patient care; improvement in the coordination of patient care; more accurate diagnosis and better outcomes; a higher level of patient participation in their own care; and cost savings for the practice

With the rising number of uninsured Americans, health care has been a major issue in the United States. Due to “The Great Recession” and the growing number of Americans who found themselves unemployed, the number of uninsured Americans has rose from 46.6 million in 2005 to a record number of 50.7 million in 2010. Many of these uninsured again have lost their employee health insurance benefits or they made the decision to cut their health insurance just to cut back costs. The rising prices of health care have also been a concern over the last few years. With new medical technology and increasing prices of prescription drugs, it has become hard for one particular group to keep up. Our

The United States’ high uninsured rate had negative consequences for uninsured Americans, who experienced greater financial insecurity, barriers to care, and odds of poor health and preventable death; for the health care system, which was burdened with billions of dollars in uncompensated care; and for the US economy, which suffered, for example, because workers were concerned about joining the ranks of the uninsured if they sought additional education or started a business.11- 16 Beyond these statistics were the countless, heartbreaking stories of Americans who struggled to access care because of a broken health insurance system. These included people like Natoma Canfield, who had overcome cancer once but had to discontinue her coverage due to rapidly escalating premiums and found herself facing a new cancer diagnosis

Care is changing universally. Healthcare workers have updated standards and practices for care today, and electronic health records (EHR) are one of these updates. EHR’s are an electronic version of a patient’s medical history. Since EHR have been implemented, it has saved patient’s lives, but also caused casualties. The question is are EHR’s helping to improve care? In this paper, the benefits of EHR’s are discussed in how they’ve improved patient-centered care and promoted health care.

Not only can EHRs improve an individual patient’s healthcare, this information can help improve and protect the public health. Information that is collected can be shared with public health care organizations to help improve research and monitoring for the prevention and control of

Though the cost of the healthcare system in the United States is the most expensive in the world, there is a large percentage of Americans that have no health insurance. Healthcare is the country’s largest economic division, larger than the national defense. Although, millions of people cannot afford to take care of their health needs. Insurance premiums have almost doubled in the last eight years, making health insurance for millions out of their grasp. Growing medical bills are continuously leaving families in debt.

Over two-thirds (68%) of the low- to middle-income uninsured are not confident that they can pay for the health care services they think they need (8). The impact of these workers lacking insurance also bleeds into their social and personal lives, as well as their mental health. Over a quarter (24%) of low and middle income uninsured adults said worry about medical costs affected their job performance, family relationships, or ability to sleep (7).

The United States healthcare system is one of the most expensive systems in the world with 16% of its gross domestic product (GDP) assigned to it, it is expected that this spending may increase up 20% of the US GDP by 2016.1 Unfortunately, despite the large amount of money delegated to this system there are still widening gap in health disparities existing in the US, based on geographical areas, race/ethnic groups or class.2 Other factors such as genetics, social circumstances, environmental exposures, behavioral patterns, and lopsided access to opportunities encourage such disparities.1,3 The number of people that do not have access to healthcare in the US is alarming, for instance in 2005 about 40 million Americans did not receive healthcare services because of their inability to purchase health insurance policy and/or pay out of pocket.1

Electronic health records will be electronically accessible to vendors and clients. To protect confidential information a security code must be used to access information. The Institute of Medicine identified six goals for health care; medical care should do no harm, be valuable, patient-focused, relevant, fruitful, and unbiased. (National Academies, 2013). EHR can help increase patient-focused care; the patient will be able to view their records online and assist in guiding their care. When records are accessible online patients can see them and manage diseases, collaborate care with providers, and improve patient to provider communication (Ricciardi, Mostashari, Murphy, Daniel, & Siminerio, 2013). Patients that are well-informed about their care have better health outcomes compared to uninformed patients. Patients who are involved in their care are less likely to experience adverse effects, to be admitted to the hospital, and have a medication error from lack of collaboration with their provider (Ricciardi et al. 2013). For providers to receive funds under the meaningful use incentive to purchase electronic equipment, they must show medical decisions are patient driven. (Ricciardi et al. 2013).

Electronic Medical Records & Access, this gives the ability to have past records of patients for long term and easily access from any place whereas paper based document and can be loss or not able to get it when it’s needed. Ensuring that the EHR is as adopted as other clinical applications can greatly impact the patient experience, including; patient registration, records management, and information infrastructure systems. As Roham et al points out, many healthcare providers are still in early staging of implementing an EHR and if not completely installed can have a negative impact on patient satisfaction metrics(2014, p. 134)11.

As the relevant literature indicates, electronic health records will have man consequences not only for health care providers and their staffs but also for patients and their family members, insurance companies, IT developers, and others. Information on these consequences was gathered from peer-reviewed publications as well other reputable academic, medical, and media sources. In examining the information, it is evident that there are both advantages and disadvantages in the changes that have already taken place, and that there are many predictions of the effects of changes that have yet to occur. In carefully examining and weighing these