The Issue of Rising Healthcare Costs
Healthcare costs have been rising at a rapid rate. The cost of healthcare is a major problem for the healthcare management today. The costs of healthcare rise every year by more than 7%. In the United States, healthcare spending climbed to $3.35 trillion in 2016—or $10,348 GDP per capita (Health Value Hub 2022). The health insurance prices have also been on a steady rise and have doubled since 2001. A major part of current US healthcare is the price on medical services and those which are related to doctor visits like hospitalization or dental care. As a result, many individuals do not use medical services not because they cannot afford it but for fear of future investment cost.
ISSUE DEFINITION AND SITUATION DESCRIPTION
There are various reasons as to why the healthcare costs are still rising. The following are the major reasons why the healthcare costs are rising.
Over treatment of patients: Doctors today try not to leave any stone unturned just in case something is wrong with a patient. This phenomenon of over treatment is one of the major reasons why cost of healthcare is rising. Although doctors do it for treating the patient it results in increased cost as they get involved in expensive medication, surgery or diagnostic testing.
Another reason as to why healthcare costs are rising is due to unnecessary medical tests. Since hospitals and doctors can have high costs, patients visit them more often which sometimes leads to over testing and over treatment. Patients also tend to ask for expensive branded products which result in an increase in healthcare costs.
The cost of technology: As healthcare costs have increased, so have the prices of medical technology like MRIs and CT scans. In fact, these high-tech medical devices are necessary in treating many diseases but they are also expensive. For example, the MRIs are used to diagnose issues from inside the body. They involve a large amount of radiation which results in an increase in healthcare costs.
There is another issue for rising healthcare costs: The unintended consequences of medical care. It is not just about money; many people who use medical services do so because they think that their conditions may lead them to death anyway so might as well make sure that everything is fine and then die peacefully without any suffering or pain.
Possible solutions to the problem of rising healthcare costs include:
Increase supply of medical technology: The first step to solve the problem is to increase the supply of medical technology which will definitely decrease the prices.
Increase supply of providers: Another solution is to increase the number of doctors, nurses and dentists. This will keep the cost down and will also ensure that there are enough people providing medical services for every patient that comes for treatment.
Decrease Primary Care Physicians’ Hours: The third possible solution would be decreasing the hours of primary care physicians. They should not work long hours as this might end up making their work shift inefficient and irresponsible.
STRATEGIES TO SOLVING THE PROBLEM
Various strategies to solving the problem of rising healthcare costs include:
Increase spending on healthcare: According to recent studies, the average healthcare spend for each person in the United States is huge. In fact, spending on healthcare in the US for each person is more than 75% of their income. This means that if your total income is $100,000 then you spend 75% of it on medical care (Investopedia 2022). All these various expenses can increase costs if done without any proper planning or research.
Reduce medical costs: As mentioned before, a major part of rising health care costs consumes facilities and services at a high rate which results in an increase in prices. If a healthcare provider reduces the prices without affecting their quality, the cost of healthcare may not increase. Improvise medical procedures and services: There are various medical procedures that have been developed with each passing day. These new procedures help in improving health of patients but they also contribute in increasing healthcare costs. Therefore, in order to improvise on existing services, healthcare plans will have to work together and cooperate with doctors as well as hospitals so that they can improvise existing medical procedures so that they can reduce cost while improving the quality of their services.
Obstacles to solving the challenge of rising healthcare costs include:
Lack of cooperation: Healthcare costs are rising due to the fact that different parties do not cooperate with each other. For example, doctors will not allow the hospitals to change processes and procedures if it may raise their costs. A hospital will not allow the doctor drop certain treatments if it may increase costs. There is also a lack of cooperation between healthcare plans and different doctors who often do not work together to solve problems regarding cost or quality of services (Khanna, 2012).
Limited supplies or resources: For example, a doctor can only provide a certain amount of staffs for various procedures at a particular location. If this amount is insufficient then healthcare plans will have to supply more medical staffs so that there is no problem in providing adequate medical care for patients.
References
Khanna, I. (2012). Drug discovery in pharmaceutical industry: productivity challenges and trends. Drug discovery today, 17(19-20), 1088-1102.
Why Do Healthcare Costs Keep Rising?. (2022). Retrieved 9 April 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/insurance/why-do-healthcare-costs-keep-rising/
@HealthValueHub. (2022). Retrieved 9 April 2022, from https://www.healthcarevaluehub.org/advocate-resources/publications/why-are-health-care-costs-urgent-problem
