Class 7 Unit 4 Topic 2 Comment 2 (M)

to student Jessica

Details, Thing to Remember:

Answer this discussion with opinions/ideas creatively and clearly. Supports post using several outside, peer-reviewed sources.

1 References, find resources that are 5 years or less

No errors with APA format 6 Edition

To Comment:

How Managed Care Manages Cost

Managed care refers to a system of healthcare that to geared to help manage cost, utilization, and quality of healthcare delivered to the patient (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, 2017).  Managed care uses six different strategies to help control and manage healthcare costs.  These strategies include:  capitation, utilization review, gatekeeping, bulk purchasing of hospital services, creating preferred networks, and ambulatory care (Engel, 2016).  These steps each work in individual ways to together collectively manage healthcare costs.  Managed care also increases competition in the health care market by lowering rates of hospital cost inflation and lower physician fees; and has an impact on hospital capacity, hospital admission patterns, the number of physicians, and the use of medical equipment and technology (Bundorf, Schulman, Stafford, Gaskin, Jollis, & Escarce, 2004).  Pretty much meaning that managed care, helps to manage cost by approaching costs on multiple levels to help control the overall cost.

Affects on Quality of Care

Managed care can diminish the quality of care by lowering patient satisfaction.  Children are often affected by managed care in that they are not able to build that trusting patient-provider relationship that children need to be comfortable with their care, which in turns affects the parents' level of satisfaction (Hall, Yarbrough Landry, Harris Lemak, Boyle, & Duncan, 2013).  If the patient (or parent) is not satisfied with the care provided, can it really be considered quality care?  Managed care also generalizes care by treating the disease and not the individual, which lowers the quality of care provided because not everyone responds to treatment the same way (Komives, 2016).  Health care plans need to be individualized to the patient to ensure the best quality of care for that particular patient's needs.  Generalized care does not equal quality care.

References

Bundorf, M.K., Schulman, K.A., Stafford, J.A., Gaskin, D., Jollis, J.G., & Escarces, J.J. (2004, February). Impact of managed care on the treatment, costs, and outcomes of fee-for-service Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction. Health Services Research, 39(1), 131-152. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6773.2004.00219.x