Healthcare Reform

Introduction:

The patient protection and affordable care act is a united states federal statue signed in to law by President Barrack Obama on March 23, 2010. Affordable care act is supposed to reform certain aspects of the private health insurance industry and expand access to insurance over 30 million Americans. PPACA includes numerous changes that will take place in years to come. In this paper I am going to talk about some of the positive and negative acts. The acts which I will be discussing in this paper are:

1) Title III. Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care

2) Title IV. Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health

Title III. Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Health Care:

One of the most important aspects of improving healthcare system is an initiative announced in April 2010 that sets up a reward system for hospital that focuses on quality of care and maintaining high level of patient satisfaction. Since this initiative affects the income, hospital will be forced to improve their services to patient, or lose money. Since private insurance companies follow Medicare for reimbursements, I hope all patients will benefit from this new emphasis on patient satisfaction. When I first came to US I had a minor injury in my wrist and my school advised me to get help from the hospital nearby. Since it is not a emergency I got an appointment after three days and I went to the hospital and I was made to sit for an hour and after that I was made to narrate what happened and again made to sit for another half hour. Then I was seen by a nurse who cleaned my wound and told that I can leave. I was pleasantly surprised by the care I got for which I eventually spent 500 dollars, with that amount I would have a got a procedure done in INDIA, but I figured out this is how healthcare works in US, but was I a satisfied patient? No! Not at all. I was very happy to read that from 2012 patients will be surveyed randomly to measure the patient’s satisfaction. The survey questions ask patients how satisfied they are with some or all of the following aspects of medical care:

1. How well nurses communicated with patients

2. How well doctors communicated with patients

3. How responsive hospital staffs were to patients’ needs

4. How well caregivers (referring to hospital personnel) managed patients’ pain

5. How well caregivers (referring to hospital personnel) explained patients’ medications to them

6. How clean and quiet the hospital was

7. How well caregivers explained