Started in 1965, Medicare has successfully provided care and treatment to millions of patients. However, as wining s the program has been, it has not been able to keep pace with the changing times and advances in healthcare. There are many benefits that lack the Medicare system – as it is still not offering an outpatient prescription medicinal advantage, thereby pressurizing many of the senior citizens to go without proper medication. Also it does not provide complete cover for serious diseases, and uncapped medical concerns.
On the contrary, with the health care expenses rising and the baby boom era getting onto an end, Medicare is facing some grave financial challenges. The need is to make the best use of the advancements of technologies and maximize the revenues for the benefit of the whole system and at the same time bring about a consistency for Medicare. President Bush has promised the health care security for the citizens and to meet the requirements, the government has outlined some guidelines for Medicare reform: 1.
All the citizens should be entitled to subsidized prescribed medicinal advantage. 2. Advanced Medicare to offer enhanced facilities for cover of serious illnesses. 3. Patients should have the option of staying with the traditional medical plans with no additional changes. 4. Medicare needs to offer better facilities like health insurance, like the ones that are offered to the government employees. 5. Medicare policies should try to strengthen the program’s long-term financial security and reduction in fraud and abuse cases.
6. Medicare should encourage high-quality health care for seniors. The government has brought forward a structure to enhance and improve the Medicare system and has committed up to $400 billion over the span of 10 years to this issue. Also the government has brought out certain plans to help the senior citizens with low incomes so that they do not have to pay huge medical bills. DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOSPICE MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
!n 1751, when the Pennsylvania Hospital, was founded, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond, issued a statement that no such patient should be admitted to the hospitals whose case is incurable while in the year 1899, the fist intensive unit was built for the Calgary Hospital, founded in New York City for the care of the dying patients or who were medically incurable. The early hospice houses were supported by the donations and voluntary work. After the establishment of the Medicare, Hospice services grew rapidly and by the end of 1998, the Hospice service consumed about 3% of the entire Medicare budget.
Hospice is a way of caring, neither with the aim to longer the life of the patient by medicinally curing him or hastening his death. The purpose of hospice is to provide comfort and care to dying and to offer support to his family. The dimensions of hospice service extend to a variety of fields. The providers offer emotional, physical, social, psychological, and spiritual support to the patient during the last days of his life. Since the costs of the hospice care is much less than the Medicare, even relatives of the hospice patients are enormously contented with the nature and amount of personal care that is extended to the patients.
According to a research report, which was published in the American Journal of medical Association, in February 2004, at an average about 72% of the families who provided hospice care to their loved ones, reported the care as Excellent in contrast to the inadequate pain management and poor medical care that existed within the institutional settings. Also, the poor communication strategies of the doctors within the institutions were not rated to be as efficient as that provided by the hospice care unit team. The objectives for enhanced hospice care deliverance comprise the subsequent issues:
• Improved community learning about hospice services and its accessibility to all citizens who are nearing their end of lives. • In advance admission to hospice and deliverance of hospice care. It is generally believed that the patient takes at least 30 days to benefit from hospice care. Currently, many studies of “too-short” stays in hospice-30 days or less-indicate that more immediate and intensive care are required by patients and as a result, much less focus can be placed on the much-needed longer-term comfort care that attends to the patient’s and family’s medical and personal needs.
• rise above cultural and demographic barriers to hospice care, most likely by using telecommunications in hospice, or other means and services to reach out to rural and otherwise less accessible hospice patients and their families. • helping the needy people and most importantly the minorities. At the same time, to meet the diverse cultural needs of the various traditions and offering them complete information about the process. With this consideration, it is needed to recruit such people who prove to be diverse culture providers and can help the society to learn about hospice in a developed manner.