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projectwk4.docxHEALTH POLICY 1
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HEALTH POLICY
Health Policy
Health Policy
Doctors and nurse practitioners share the same job description such as diagnosing and treating. However, when Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement returns come, the rates for nurses are below average compared to doctors. This is because Medicare and Medicaid are government-managed programs and they decide doctors’ reimbursement as per fee schedule. Nevertheless, Medicare is a federally managed program and state program rates vary depending on states. Nurse practitioner reimbursement rates differ from 75% to 100% depending on the state. Even though the United States of America (USA) spends the most money on healthcare, there are still concerns with access to primary care. These concerns are more pronounced in some parts of the country (Arifkhanova, 2017).
The appropriate approaches for increasing nurses’ reimbursement include obtaining membership in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) for collective lobbying, and delegating reimbursement responsibilities to AANP. The Association (AANP) advocates for nurses rights and welfare including professional development and equitable remuneration and reimbursement both on the regional and national levels (Arifkhanova, 2017). In this regard, the AANP will push for: equitable reimbursement for nurses the same way that doctors; and equal priority for nurses as full partners with doctors and other healthcare stakeholders in in initiatives aimed at remodeling US healthcare practice (Arifkhanova, 2017). Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that healthcare facilities collect relevant data that portray nurses’ roles as responsible stakeholders. For example, healthcare administration leaders ought to illustrate concern for nurses’ welfare (Harkless&Vece, 2018)b For instance they can portray nursesas employees that are not only concerned with upholding the quality of patient care services but also reducing healthcare costs, and increase access to healthcare services similar to doctors.
Lastly, involving the public through social media will ensure changes are made on a national level because many people go to nurses as their primary care providers. Lack of sufficient knowledge on reimbursement policies is the greatest challenge that has significantly reduced nurses’ pursuit for equitable reimbursement (Bartol, 2016). However, these changes might face opposition from doctors who might argue that nurses handle less complex patients as compared to doctors because doctors handle more complex diagnostic challenges, chronically sick clients, and mentally and emotionally unstable patients (Bartol, 2016). Doctors can also argue that nursing care is relatively cheaper and of lower quality sincethey are not as good as doctors, and are less educated.
The roles of AP registered nurses in the dimension of chronic-disease management in primary care facilities include evidence-based approaches to patient care, and learning while working. This is achieved through provision of patient-centered and customized services in specialty care facilities, acute care sections requiring special attention, training and education, and application of interpersonal and professional competencies. Inter-professional collaboration among nurses and physicians is crucial in pursuit of improvementof patient care outcomes, and the quality of healthcare services (Elsous& Mohsen, 2017). Affordable Care Act (ACA) has enabled creation of multi-stakeholder programs by collaborating with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to increase the quality of care, and reduce. Nurses are the people with special knowledge and skills and they provide coordinated and quality care. Therefore, nurses’ engagement in health-policy development can fulfill the social and ethical responsibility of the nursing profession.
Nurses need to apply acceptable ethical and professional competencies so as to take leadership responsibility in light of technological advancements in the health care system. Nurses help in modifying policies for responsible quality health care services. The American Nurses Association's code of ethics directs nurses to actively participate in policy development, implementation, evaluation, and modification (Shalala et al., 2011). Therefore, nurse leaders play crucial roles in policy development in regard to health-care-resource distribution, planning, and regulation of patient care practices. Policy increase nurses’ political skills make them future leaders. Nursing education includes policy education. American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) introduced health policy in the nursing curriculum. Health policy at the state and federal levels develop leadership skills that improve political awareness (Shalala et. al., 2011). It aids the development of skills in advocacy and analysis practice to improve quality care.
APs can play an integral role in shapingorganizational change within health care organizations. Indeed, Aps are compelled to gain and maintain the professionalism that is critical in undertaking their professional roles. In particular, they are required to perform only the roles that are within their designated competences. Additionally, the change process takes place ina gradual but constant manner around them. Assuch, they may desire to support them or be indifferent to them. They manage change through mechanisms such as tackling the complexity of the inherent processes. This is often common especially when an organization assesses, plans, and implements operations, approaches, and techniques that ensure that the change process is worthwhile and relevant. In light of the above, the Aps consider the process of change management as a sophisticated, dynamic and challenging endeavor. This is because it is never widely acknowledged as a choice between technological or individual-related solutions but an admixture of all.
In view of the above, efficacious change management procedure is widely understood as an exercise that encompasses unfreezing of old habits, implementing new ones, and refreezing them. This three-step model of change management is recognized by Kurt-Lewin, a renowned scholar of organizational change (Henshall et al., 2018). The change endeavor may be acknowledged as a continuous, sporadic, usually occasional or scarce situation. The predictable change process enables the change agents such as APs and senior professionals. Predictable change gives room for preparedness whereas the spontaneous ones are often hard to respond to efficaciously. Since change in the health care contexts take place at a rapid pace, it is likely to be predictable and manageable. More importantly, change in the health care sector can be leveraged to generate sustainable competitive advantage. This can be attained by increasing organizations’ capacity to adjust, adapt, and evolve over time, and perform better than rival within the same sector. Finally, Aps promote change by providing quality care. In so doing, they act as solutions to the scarcity of primary care physicians, and to meet the basic needs of the remote and disadvantaged communities. Indeed, primary care entails the first contact with the patients and, subsequently, offers continuity of care within the system via coordination of care on the basis of the patients’ needs (Woo et al., 2017). Thus, the Aps can promote change by assessing patient needs and the areas that can be addressed to generate the desired patient outcomes.
References
Arifkhanova, A. (2017). The impact of nurse practitioner scope-of-practice regulations in primary care (Doctoral dissertation, PARDEE RAND GRADUATE SCHOOL).
Bartol, T. (2016). Cost of Care: NPs vs. Physicians. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/861044#vp_2
Elsous, A., Radwan, M., & Mohsen, S. (2017). Nurses and Physicians attitudes toward nurse-physician collaboration: a survey from Gaza Strip, Palestine. Nursing research and practice, 2017.
Harkless, G., &Vece, L. (2018). Systematic review addressing nurse practitioner reimbursement policy: Part one of a four-part series on critical topics identified by the 2015 nurse practitioner research agenda. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 30(12), 673-682.
Henshall, C., Doherty, A., Green, H., Westcott, L., & Aveyard, H. (2018). The role of the
assistant practitioner in the clinical setting: a focus group study. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 695.
Shalala, D., Bolton, L. B., Bleich, M. R., Brennan, T. A., Campbell, R. E., & Devlin, L. (2011). The future of nursing: Leading change, advancing health. Washington DC: The National Academy Press. doi, 10, 12956.
Woo, B. F. Y., Lee, J. X. Y., & San Tam, W. W. (2017). The impact of the advanced practice
