Introduction
The desire of various countries to have a competitive health care system, a system where patients are able to get better medical services, has been on creating concern in the modern days. In order to make this a reality, most countries have come up with different strategies of ensuring better healthcare provision. For instance, they have enacted various laws and regulations to govern such provisions, which have led to the development of certain healthcare policies (Barr, 2011). These include policies regarding access to care, cost of care and quality of care among others policies. It is through these policies that have led to the timely provision and quality services as indicated in various policies such as Obama Care. Although these policies benefit both healthcare centers and clients, there exist some policy issues that may hinder the operation of the set policies. Consequently, medical centers need to understand these policy issues to ensure that they do not interfere with the kind of services offered (Morgan 2010).
Aims of the Paper
Based on the effects of health care policy issues towards the provision of better healthcare services, this paper provides impacts of these issues towards different personalities in regards to the services offered (Barr, 2011). These include hospital administrator, physician, patient, politician, tax payer, board member and staff in relation to access to care, cost of care and quality of care.
Hospital Administrator
A hospital administrator is responsible for setting various rules that controls the operation of the organization. Despite the fact that one of the healthcare policies is the right of any patient to have access to medication, but some administrators, through their set rules, only allows people with insurance cover to access medication (Holtz, 2012). Therefore, some of the patients who may not be accessed to health care insurance may not be able to access medication even if they are in critical condition. In most cases, these patients’ ends up dying without attended to even though they have rights to access to mediation (Barr, 2011).
Cost of care is another healthcare policy issue that affects the provision of better healthcare. By using the authority granted to them, hospital administrators have the opportunity of setting their own charges for the services offered. However, healthcare policy requires that medical services should be provided at lower costs in order to give low earners the chance to get better healthcare services. Hence, by coming up with higher charges on medication, some of the clients would not be able to access medication, which is against healthcare policy (Morgan 2010). Moreover, the quality of care is another policy issues that affect the kind of services provided. For instance, hospital administrators are required to employ and hire qualified medical practitioners to attend to their clients. However, some of the doctors hired are not qualified enough to provide the required medication. This leads to poor medication, which result in injuries or even death of the patient. Therefore, in order for healthcare centers to ensure they work as per the demands of the policies, they need to avoid certain moves such as hiking medication costs that would hinder the need for better medical services.
Physician
According to healthcare policies, all physicians are entitled to provide treatment without any condition as long as the patient requires medical attention (Westhues, 2006). However, some physicians make it impossible for patients to have access to care even if they have the required fee or healthcare insurance. For instance, a physician may fail to treat a patient due to lack of extra money for the job done despite having full amount required for medication (Morgan 2010). Such medical practitioners always demand for extra personal fees from their clients for the job done or else they fail to provide medical services, which affects the operation of healthcare policies.
On the other hand, some of the physicians may fail to request for extra pay on the services offers but they may attend to patients depending on the amount paid for the services. Therefore, some of the patients who may not have extra money for the services may wait in the queue for other patients to be attended to regardless of their arrival time (Morgan 2010). Some of these patients may give up and go back without treatment while others get injured or die while in the queues. In addition, some of the physicians are not well educated, which may not give them the chance to provide better medical services to their clients (Barr, 2011). For instance, they may provide a faulty diagnosis to their patients resulting to poor medication that may result in injuries or death of the patient. Hence, for the physicians to ensure that they respect all the policies provided by healthcare policies, they need to provide medical services in line with the demands of the policies.
Patient
Healthcare policy demands that all patients are entitled to access to medication. Therefore, patients should access to medication in various healthcare centers. Nevertheless, some patients always disrespect this policy of access to medication. For instance, some patients may attend medical centers and be diagnosed for certain diseases that would require surgery but they may decline the process due to fear despite having all medication requirements. By declining surgery process, these patients deny their policy of access to medication (Mechanic, 2005). Furthermore, a patient that requires emergency medical attention may refuse to get treated from other medical practitioners and insist on a doctor who might not be available at the moment (Barr, 2011). In the process, they end up dying or get injured due to failure to access to medication.
There are also various ways in which patients may interfere with the policy of cost of care during medication. For instance, a patient may seek medication from any healthcare center, be given medicine under prescription but in the process, the patient ends up using the drugs without following doctor’s instructions, resulting to more complication in the body which requires him/her to seek other medication (Mechanic, 2005). This would result in more spending by the patient, which may not comply with the policy of cost of care. Hence, patients need to follow doctor’s instructions to the latter to avoid more costly on medication. In addition, patients may interfere with the kind of quality of care in many ways. Many of the patients are not willing to provide accurate information to their doctors due to fear of stigmatization (Morgan 2010). A patient with HIV may not allow doctors to diagnose them, instead, they provide a false description of their suffering that leads to poor medication.
Politician
It is important to note that various legislations that govern various sectors in any give country is enacted and amended through the national assembly of the respective countries (Mechanic, 2005). Therefore, the legislators are responsible for making these laws and ensure that they become effective. When dealing with the healthcare issue, politicians need to come up with appropriate principles to govern the policies of healthcare. While setting these principles, they need to ensure that all the principles are accessible by the public (Morgan, 2010). For instance, legislators who come up with policies that would allow easier access to medication would ensure that all citizens are able to pay the costs set. On the contrary, coming up with policies that are unfriendly to the public will block them to access to proper medication. Moreover, by enacting laws that do not provide quality medication to the public, members would not be able to get better medical services. Therefore, politicians need to ensure they enact better laws that would enhance better healthcare medications.
Tax Payers
Tax payers are the citizens of a country, who are responsible for generating tax revenues to their government for development. These taxes would depend on the set regulations by the government through the legislators. Therefore, in order for the government to ensure that people get access to medication, they need to regulate the charges of medication by ensuring that all people regardless of their jobs are able to meet medical expenses (Mechanic, 2005). In case of higher charges on medication, those that are poor will not be in the position to get access to medication, thus hindering the policy of access to medication to all citizens. Moreover, imposing higher charges on drugs and other medical services will prevent many citizens from accessing these services, hence reducing revenue collection leading to poor development of the healthcare sectors (Holtz, 2012). In addition, higher charges on medication results to poor quality medication as patients will only access cheap drugs and medical services that would not respond to their conditions, leading to poor quality to medication.
Board Members
Board members and hospital administrators should work in hand especially in decision making. These are decisions on the kind of medication to offer, their prices and quality of the services required. By the two bodies coming up with strict policies such as having insurance cover, some of the patients who may not access the services will be denied the chance to access to care (Morgan, 2010). Therefore, they will be unable to get treatment due to lack of insurance cover despite having enough money for their medication. Board members, being the top organ in decision making, may decide to increase the cost of acquiring medical services from their organization. This will make it impossible to patient without the full amount to get access to medication (Holtz, 2012). Furthermore, the move will block patients from accessing quality medication due to the high prices charged on them. These interfere with the desire towards the implementation of healthcare policies.
Staff
Other members of healthcare centers such as nurses also have impacts on healthcare policies in various ways. For instance, nurses may refuse to attend to a patient unless being paid some extra cash outside the treatment bills (Barr, 2011). Therefore, some of the patients without money will not be attended to as required by the law. This leads to access denial to medication, which opposed to the demands of the healthcare policy of access to medication to all patients (Barr, 2011). While some nurses increase medication prices on the services offered resulting increase in medication costs. Furthermore, some nurses are not well educated and may not provide better services to their clients as required by the law. Through the above negligence, it reduces the chance of enhancing better healthcare policies.
Conclusion
References:
Barr, D.A. (2011). Introduction to U.S. Health Policy: The Organization, Financing, and Delivery of Health Care in America. Baltimore: JHU Press.
Holtz, C. (2012). Global Health Care: Issues and Policies. Hoboken: Jones & Bartlett Publisher.
Mechanic, D. (2005). Policy Challenges In Modern Health Care. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Westhues, A. (2006). Canadian Social Policy: Issues And Perspectives. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press.
Morgan, G. (2010). Evidence-based health policy: A preliminary systematic review. HEALTH EDUCATION JOURNAL, 69(1), pp.43-47
