Bna S Health Care Policy Report

America's Health Care Safety Net explains how competition and cost issues in today's health care marketplace are posing major challenges to continued access to care for America's poor and uninsured. At a time when policymakers and providers are urgently seeking guidance, the committee recommends concrete strategies for maintaining the viability of the safety netâ€"with innovative approaches to building public attention, developing better tools for tracking the problem, and designing effective interventions. This book examines the health care safety net from the perspectives of key providers and the populations they serve, including: Components of the safety netâ€"public hospitals, community clinics, local health departments, and federal and state programs. Mounting pressures on the systemâ€"rising numbers of uninsured patients, decline in Medicaid eligibility due to welfare reform, increasing health care access barriers for minority and immigrant populations, and more. Specific consequences for providers and their patients from the competitive, managed care environmentâ€"detailing the evolution and impact of Medicaid managed care. Key issues highlighted in four populationsâ€"children with special needs, people with serious mental illness, people with HIV/AIDS, and the homeless.

Healthcare economics is a topic of increasing importance due to the substantial changes that are expected to radically alter the way Americans obtain and finance healthcare. Understanding Healthcare Economics, 2nd Edition provides an evidence-based framework to help practitioners comprehend the changes already underway in our nation’s healthcare system. It presents important economic facts and explains the economic concepts needed to understand the implications of these facts. It also summarizes the results of recent empirical studies on access, cost, and quality problems in today’s healthcare system. The material is presented in two sections. Section 1 focuses on the healthcare access, cost and quality issues that create pressures for change in health policy. The first edition was completed just as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was debated and passed. This new edition updates the information about access, cost, and quality issues. It also discusses the pressure for change that led to the passage of the PPACA, evidence that shaped the construction of the act, evidence on the impacts of the PPACA, and evidence on the pressures for future changes. Section 2 focuses on changes that are underway including: changes in the Medicare payment system; new types of healthcare delivery organizations such as ACOs and patient-centered medical homes. It also discusses the current efforts to help patients build health such as wellness programs and disease management programs. And finally, health information technology will be discussed. The new edition will maintain the current structure; however each chapter will be updated to discuss post-PPACA evidence on each type of type. In addition to the updates previously mentioned, the authors will present a series of data explorations to several chapters. Most of the new data explorations present summarized statistical information based on de-identified data from one hospital electronic data system. These data explorations serve two purposes. First, they illustrate the impacts of the pressures for change – and some of the changes – on healthcare providers. For example, the data illustrates the financial impact of pre-PPACA uncompensated care. Second, explanation of the data will require explanations of standard coding systems that are used nationwide (DRGs, CPT, ICD) codes. Other data explorations provide detail about other sources of data useful for health policy analysis, and for healthcare providers and insurers.

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