Health care

Do decisions based on the average benefit from treatment lead to excessive use of medical care?

You are required to provide approximately 500 words answering the above question. This will need to be appropriately referenced.

Addresses the subject and the issues raised in the question

Evidence of an appropriate level of research regarding various concepts relating to the question

Demonstrates an appropriate level of understanding of the theoretical principles and concepts

Ideas are clearly articulated and coherently structured

This will need to be appropriately referenced at least 4 references.

Health care

Many medical facilities across the world aim at facilitating quality services in treatment of sickness, accident injuries, burns and the general well being of the body. In achieving these goals, according to the online medical dictionary online-medical-dictioary.org the providers

Improve their health care by ensuring the right professionals provide the services to the patients. The average benefit makes the patients to seek more improved services in medical care even after receiving the average benefits being offered.

Health care costs have increased dramatically over the last few decades and are now thought to be excessively high and this has caused the current political re-evaluation of the health care system, including its funding and performance. Walters et al ((2014) gives the analysis of the causes of the increase in health care costs from the normal average benefits. The major culprit in the seemingly endless rise in health care costs is found to be the removal of the patient as a major participant in the financial and medical choices that are currently being made by others in the name of the patient

After subsequent progression in medical care, we can no longer doubt that the patient now seeks even more improved services from the medical care than before. According to Fisher, & Welch (1999) there is excessive use of medical care, which waters down the average benefit of such treatment. The excessive use may be linked to underutilization or inappropriate overuse of tests and treatment. Sadly, at some point the medical practitioners can prescribe expensive medical care and tests that might impact negatively in the financial health of the patient. This sad revelation is exemplified by looking at the average cost that a patient incurs in getting treatment for conditions such as stress, depression, and substance abuse (Fisher & Welch, 1999). The cost for these treatments can shoot as high as to the ratio of one to seven that is benefit to cost. This increase signifies the patients’ desire for more health care equipment and better services after every visit with the doctor.

Health care facilities across the world have been seen to cooperate and form organization to improve quality services and drugs administration. .A study carried out by a quality of care and Inter hospital collaboration found out that some hospitals exercised patients-sharing relations within the hospital (Owens, 2011). These hospitals provided the patients with specialized doctors, which meant a higher medical bill on the patients. The study also found that the patients themselves were prone of visiting the private practitioners who charged exorbitant fees for their services. This automatically translated to high medical bills (Meltzer,, 1997).  

Nonetheless, there are strong and persistent organizational and relational effects driving transfers. Decentralized patient-sharing converts to decisions taken by the thirty-five hospitals giving rise to a system of collaborative relations between hospitals may produce desirable outcomes both for individual patients and for regional health care systems. It is evident now that professions such as practitioners in allied health, obstetrics, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, optometry, psychology and many more health care providers have to work tirelessly to deliver according to the modern day patient expectation.

References

Fisher, E. S., & Welch, H. G. (1999). Avoiding the unintended consequences of growth in medical care: how might more be worse? JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association281(5), 446-453.

Meltzer, D. (1997). Accounting for future costs in medical cost-effectiveness analysis. Journal of Health Economics16(1), 33-64.

Owens, D. K., Qaseem, A., Chou, R., & Shekelle, P. (2011). High-value, cost-conscious health care: concepts for clinicians to evaluate the benefits, harms, and costs of medical interventions. Annals of internal medicine154(3), 174-180.

Waters, E. A., Weinstein, N. D., Colditz, G. A., & Emmons, K. (2009). Explanations for side effect aversion in preventive medical treatment decisions. Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association, 28(2), 201-209.