Managed health care in today’s us.
Managed Health care is a health care system that takes care of the monetary aspect of health care delivery. It finances the services provided by health care institutions by taking care of individuals enrolled in a particular health care plan. Managed health care was introduced in order to provide subscribers with first class services in terms of care and at the same time, cost management. The program also ensures that care is provided by the most competent hands with the best facilities around.
Managed care is a concept used to describe the carious techniques employed to reduce the cost of providing health services to individuals. it can be seen as a means of improving the quality of care that patients get in order to alleviate their health conditions. In the past, the US health industry was characterized by patients footing their health care bills.
The emergence of managed health care in the US stems from the enactment of the Health Maintenance Organization Act in the year 1973. It provided legal backing for the pooling of funds for the kick starting a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). It also streamlined various other health care systems at that time to be in tune with the new legislation.
Referring to the managed health care as ‘dead’ is but an apt way of describing some of the negative sides to the managed health care system. As it is a general knowledge that managed health care is run as a real business. This makes the minimization of cost a paramount issue in order to cut cost and maximize profit. This however, has been their bane as this sometimes runs in conflict with the care of the patients that they are meant to cater for. There have been cases of denial of care benefits to patients for such trivial reasons as high cost of medical treatment. In my own opinion, this should not come into the picture at all as the life of an individual is at stake here. Similar opinion, i believe is shared by so many other people out there that have been caught on the wrong side of managed health care. The figure is increasing. Also, an aggravating factor is the state of the US economy today. As many companies are also trying to cut costs, paying the premium of workers’ health insurance has been an issue for some of them. This also translates to non coverage of some individuals in the health care plan.
From the afore mentioned reasons, it can be deduced that all is not well with the Managed health care industry in the country today. The state of the economy is a contributory factor, so also is the increasing disenchantment of patients who feel left out in the scheme of things.
there have been mixed reactions to the issue of the relevance of Managed health care Industry in the US today, the debate rages on as some people are of the opinion that managed health care is of benefit to some people while others are saying that enough is enough. Whichever side is taken will definitely depend on the experience one has had with the system, either as a patient or as an administrator. However, the patient’s life is at stake, whichever side is eventually taken.