8 page due April 12th

Assessment of Community-Level Barriers

Barbara Seifert

HCA 430 Special Populations

Jennifer Maves

March 30, 2019

Introduction

The chosen vulnerable populations are people with mental conditions. There are several reasons why people with mental conditions require the services proposed within the program. People with mental conditions undergo many issues as a result of their brains not being in the position to think in the required manner. Due to mental conditions, some mentally ill patients have found themselves kicked out of their families. In addition to this, there are those whom their families have given up on them and, therefore, fail to take good care of them (Patel, Flisher, Hetrick, & McGorry, 2007). Some families also struggle to ensure their sick members with mental conditions are capable of seeking medical care. It is such issues that make it evident why the proposed service is highly required for these people with mental issues.

Proposed program description

The proposed program aims to offer a wide range of services to the patients, which could be mainly categorized as preventive, and long-term care. Mental conditions arguably have treatments in place; there are drugs, however, designed to ensure an individual could live with the mental condition but still remain to be important within the society. As a strategy to offer long-term care, the program aims at offering transportation in addition to subsidized medical bills to all patients with mental conditions. It was realized that there are some patients with mental conditions who fail to seek medical attention as a result of living far away from the healthcare centers. Time to time, transportation will be offered alongside the subsidized fees to ensure these patients continuously have medical checkups all the times. As a preventive strategy, the program seeks to ensure there is effective access to information concerning mental health. There is a need for people to know that mental health could be hereditary. The community also needs to understand there are conditions in life such as struggles that could act as risk factors towards developing mental conditions. It is such pieces of information that would act as a preventive strategy for the entire community at large. Again as a preventive strategy, the program will focus on the adolescents to ensure they have knowledge of how they could prevent mental conditions from affecting them in the near future.

Barriers to receiving proper care

The first significant barrier would be individual financial problems. Generally, people are struggling to cover their daily expenses as they focus most on ensuring they have basic needs. With little disposable income, especially among those in low socioeconomic classes, little or no cash is always available for such medical expenses or checkups. For families with medical condition patients, it becomes expensive to cater for their needs as they also seek to cater for the needs of other family members. The second major barrier would be funding from the federal and state governments. Most funding in the healthcare sector focuses on the chronic diseases which account for 75% of the entire US healthcare expenditure. Chronic diseases and mental health account for 90% of healthcare expenditure according to CDC (2019). There is more focus on chronic diseases thus failure to effectively focus on mental issues, which are also significant healthcare conditions. The third important barrier would be the number of mental health practitioners who are fewer compared to the number of people facing mental health issues. With a small number, it would be difficult to reach out to the large population of people with mental conditions.

Potential solutions to barriers

Solution to individual financial problems would be covered by the program by offering subsidized fees based on the household income of a patient. This will ensure different prices are paid in a sustainable manner among the patients. Solution to the funding by the federal and state governments would involve taking the issue directly to the responsible authorities and through advocacy, demand for more funding to ensure the healthcare centers associated with treating mental conditions are well supported. The program will also initiate a well-wisher strategy that will solicit funds from the public. On the small number of professionals, there is a need to train currently available professionals who could join the mental health sector. A long-term strategy would also be to encourage students in institutions on majoring on the mental health sector.

Analysis of Regulatory, Legal, Ethical, and Accreditation Requirements

Different laws have been developed to guide practice in mental health. One law is the mental equal coverage law that prohibits healthcare facilities from discriminating coverage offered for mental condition, serious mental conditions, and other physical disorders. Another regulation is the minimum mandated mental health benefits law that requires some level of coverage to be offered for mental illness, substance abuse or a combination of the two. Various ethical considerations are expected for the service in question. Poor patient’s ability to make decisions, ability to communicate, patient’s preferences, and confidentiality are some of the ethical issues that will be associated with the service. The program will seek to be accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). According to AAAHC, a program must be comprehensive and of high quality. It should also be consensus-based and should be updated annually with a chance for public comment. The standards also demand the provision of quality care to all patients (AAAHC, 2014).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the program will play a crucial role in assisting people with mental health conditions live a better life. The program will, however, be faced with funding issues and the low number of professionals in the mental health sector. These challenges would be addressed through subsidized medical bills, advocacy for more funding and encouraging more medical professionals to go the mental health way. The program must abide by the laws, consider ethics and accreditation for its ultimate success.

References

Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care. (2014). What does accreditation mean for my care? Retrieved from: http://www.aaahc.org/en/my-care/

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2019). Health and Economic Costs of Chronic Diseases. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/about/costs/index.htm

Patel, V., Flisher, A. J., Hetrick, S., & McGorry, P. (2007). Mental health of young people: a global public-health challenge. the Lancet, 369(9569), 1302-1313.