The Importance Of Continuum Of Care

One of the ways that the ACA focuses on a patient’s health care experiences and outcomes is to reward primary care providers who coordinate a patient’s care with specialists or other doctors. The idea behind this coordination of care is that

Long-term care is a variety of services that includes medical and non-medical care to people who have a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care helps meet health or personal needs. Most long-term care is to assist people with support services such as activities of daily living like dressing, bathing, eating, and using the bathroom. Long-term care can be provided at home, in the community, in assisted living or in nursing homes. Long-term care can be given at any age depending on

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a radical healthcare reform that aims to provide affordable, quality healthcare for all US citizens. This increased scope of coverage would allow millions more of Americans to use the system. In order to drive down costs from many more individuals, the ACA has planned to increase incentives for preventative public health interventions including primary care physicians. Although this is a fine beginning, I believe the greatest challenge to the long-term success of this reform remains the shift in mindset from a focus in treatment to an equal focus in prevention. Preventative services are vital to a healthcare system. However, the effects of prevention are often long term, and thus are traditionally underappreciated by those who have the disease being prevented. Individuals with the disease also undervalue prevention, as it does not affect their health state. With this mindset, prevention is undermined and will continue to be a challenge for the progression of the ACA.

In order to improve healthcare nationally and cut cost spending, preventative care and wellness should be at the fore front of every healthcare organization. Recommendations to emphasize preventative and wellness services include building a workplace that support healthy lifestyles, expand the roles of advanced providers, and expand preventative services at no cost.

Many chronic conditions can greatly affect an individual physically with some sort of chronic pain, mentally with depression, and socially by rendering them unable to work (Harris & Wallace, 2012). These effects can thus put strain on families and society as more individuals suffer from various chronic conditions. In recent years, many of those working as health care professionals, such as primary care providers (PCPs) are affected greatly by the widespread prevalence of chronic disease in the US. For PCPs, approximately 75% of their patients schedule visits for multiple chronic illnesses (Zamosky, 2013). This has caused a shift in health care to focus on tertiary prevention in limiting comorbidities and issues associated with chronic diseases. PCPs face challenges by having less time to treat chronic disease because they only having have approximately eighteen minutes to deal with on average seven issues for each patient (Zamosky, 2013). Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage or charge more for people with preexisting conditions which includes those with chronic diseases (ObamaCare Facts, n.d.). The ACA helps people with chronic illnesses to obtain insurance; however, since these people are insured

Americans have been faced with a new health care reform act known as Affordable Care Act initiated in 2010. Why was it so important for this nation to reform is health care system? How are we sure the ACA is improving our system for the American people? For many years, the health care industry has left many Americans uninsured. With health care costs on the rise and very few able to afford costs, and the quality of care in underserved areas not what it should be has left this nation largely unhealthy. Several landmark reports, including the Center for Disease Control factsheets and the Healthy People 2020 have astounding statistics confirming these alarming rates and clearly identifying the need for reform. The Affordable Care Act is the starting foundation for Americans to start investing in their own promotion of wellness and disease prevention. By choosing healthier lifestyle changes, individuals can make a difference which in turn will improve our nation’s overall health for the better.

One of the aims of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is improved integration and coordination of services for primary patient care. The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is one of the approaches by which improvements can be established. The patient-centered medical home model is particularly well-suited for people who have chronic illness. The design of the patient-centered medical home model departs substantively from traditional reimbursement policies, in that, the ACA provides for incentives and resources to enable care coordinators to be directly recognized and compensated for their care coordination work. Care coordinators are most often registered nurses who through their work that aligns with ACA engage in quality improvement work, cost-effectiveness measures, and patient advocacy. To bring the ACA model to a human scale, the authors present a case study of a care coordinator at a patient-centered medical home in rural Maine. The table provided below provides a basic textual analysis of the study as it is published in the professional nursing journal.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 (CITATION). The ACA represent one of the biggest U.S healthcare system overhaul since Medicare and Medicaid passage in 1965 (CITATION). This reform was implemented to help consumers gain access to affordable health care coverage while also protecting them from abuse perpetrated by insurance companies. The goals of the ACA is to assure quality care, decreasing cost for the uninsured, and making healthcare available to all Americans. As a part of this quality care assurance, there is a mandated for positive transition of health care (CITATION). This brief will examine the factors that must be monitored in the implementation of ACA in order to promote the positive transition of health care and prevent re-hospitalization of this patient population.

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Implications for Public Health Policy and Practice.” Public Health Reports. Association of Schools of Public Health. n.d. Web. 14 July 2015. This paper claims that the PPACA will cut the number of uninsured Americans in half. The act attempts to provide nearly universal coverage and improve the quality and equity of said coverage through reforms to insurance standards and the marketplace. It also attempts to improve the quality of healthcare and the efficiency of its delivery by allowing consumers to edge the system into a more integrated state and measuring performance. It attempts to encourage preventive medicine by targeting chronic illnesses and funding community-based medicine. These changes will bring huge opportunities for improvement in the system, many of which are subtle and nuanced and will only be seen as the plan rolls into act over the next few

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will cause a large influx of patients into the health care system. For a variety of reasons, this will change how the front-line health care personnel provide care. Nurses will expand his or her scope and territory of care. Front line providers will change to include more advanced practice nurses because of the national shortage of primary care providers ("Department Of Health And Human Services," 2014). No longer will they just practice in brick and mortar hospitals. Because of the recently instituted Medicare, reimbursement regulations after patients are discharge from the hospital more nurses will be in the field performing well patient checks. These nurses will ensure the follow through of discharge

In 2010, following much controversy, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court and signed into law. (Aoughsten, Johnson, Kuruvilla, & Bionat, 2015). Though this law is still relatively new, the public is reeling for a report on its effects on healthcare so far. The ACA is projected to reduce the uninsured rate by approximately 26 million by the year 2017, but people hunger for the effects on costs, the quality of their care, and any implications on their current healthcare situation (Blumenthal & Collins, 2014). The ACA strives to improve the overall healthcare system and create a patient-centered structure (Yuh, Dall’Era, Penson, & Evans, 2015). These goals have shifted the idea of healthcare we have always had in the United States and allowed healthcare to be focused on the patient as a whole and not just the disease they have. The Affordable Care Act should be continued as the United States healthcare

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare or ACA, was signed into law in March 2010 with the goal to expand insurance coverage to millions of Americans over a period of several years. Since its enactment six years ago, there have been millions of Americans that have gained access to coverage. The most notable of this population would be the disabled, mentally ill, and impoverished. In order to continue to provide quality outcomes for patients, especially patients of vulnerable populations, extra focus must be given to ensure access to healthcare, decreasing disparities, and harvesting improvement in areas such as preventative care, education, and maximizing quality of life. With this influx of people entering the healthcare field, the role of nurses and nurse leaders is also expected to change. Nursing scope of practice and education will be expanded to create an elite healthcare provider. This will include maximizing knowledge in areas of holistic care, education, and preventative care. The incorporation of the ACA into healthcare for vulnerable populations will have several implications for nurses including expanding leadership roles, changing the healthcare delivery model, and providing a broad range of care.

However, these are microcosms of a person’s total being that must be treated and care for as well. The Affordable Care Act outlines guidelines for “essential health benefits” that must be covered by every insurance company, “ Obamacare 's "essential health benefits," which include ambulatory and ER care, hospital stays, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance abuse services, prescription drug plans, rehabilitative care, and lab work. Dental and vision care is covered until a child reaches age 19”, (KidsHealth). It is important that when maintaining one’s health, not only the physical aspects are considered. Mental health and social health ultimately affect one’s physical health as well. That is why counseling services and rehabilitation centers are at an extreme need because mental health and substance abuse rates are at all times highs in our communities and our country. The repercussions of these can be felt on the physical body through side effects and neurological imbalances, which also lead to heart disease, stress, and stroke. The highest “silent killers” in our nation.

Primary care access is a growing concern for all Americans and the reason behind this concern is an imbalance between demand for care and capacity to provide care. Demand is growing as the population expands, ages, and faces chronic illnesses and the capacity is shrinking as the ration of primary care clinicians to population drops (Ghorob & Bodenheimer, 2012). A primary goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to improve access to quality health care for uninsured Americans, largely through public and private insurance expansions (Polsky et al, 2015). At the same time, the architects of the law recognized the need to increase the availability of primary care providers to meet the increased demand for health care (Pg. 538, 2015).

In conclusion, it will examine the future trends of health care and discuss how the home health services will be impacted or have a need to change to meet future trends. The continuum of home health care pertains to the diversity of health care services rendered for the existence of a person’s life.