Long-Term Care Facilities - Essay Example

TLC facilities are a policy focus in the modern social market and social market-prone economies, where the idea of a welfare state might emerge to be strong. However, as an industrial segment, this submarket appears to be shrinking the countries like the United States. Hence, increased competition appears to be the major problem of this submarket. Even some professional websites such as CompleteLongTermCare.com (2012) do not consider the present situation that has arisen due to increased competition. Rather, the shrinking submarket is giving way to malpractices.

According to Yahoo! Inc. (2012), long-term care facilities have a composite value of 1148.9 as of 7th November 2012. On this specific day, the amount of change was -0.26%, which means that the submarket is shrinking. If the data of the past few years are analyzed, then we find that this submarket is shrinking since the global economic recession.

Reduction of service costs coupled with the deterioration of service quality is a prominent problem given that in the absence of competent healthcare services, the public is suffering from chronic shortcomings in the system as a whole.

“There are nursing homes that are surprisingly cheaper than the others. They even offer great deals and promos which can sound too good to be true. No matter how good their deals may be, always remember that they are cheap for a reason. Some nursing homes cost less because they offer less” (CompleteLongTermCare.com, 2012).

Furthermore, a recent study by the US Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.) indicates that at least 10% of the patients (who get admitted to a nursing home annually) are possibly going to stay there for at least the next five years and more. Like Europe, America may also soon suffer from the problem of a vast population of senior citizens and old age groups. Strangely enough, although demands for TLC are thus poised to increase, the quality of services is being preponderantly compromised (Saltman et al, 2006).

Tentative Proposals to Encourage Fair Competition:
- The government must extensively standardize the existing TLC providers and clinician parameters on the field.
- Most critical standards must be strictly enforced. A few examples of these are given below:
i) “The leaders set priorities for data collection” (Joint Commission Resources et al, 2011, p. MC – 96),
ii) “The organization compiles and analyzes data” (Joint Commission Resources et al, 2011, p. MC – 97),
iii) The organization offers accommodation for older adults (CompleteLongTermCare.com, 2012; Pratt, 2010).
- More federal-level regulations should be enforced.

The proposals enumerated above will stabilize the competition in a submarket to which the S&P 500 assigned a valuation of -2.21% of late (Yahoo! Inc., 2012). Furthermore, regulatory standardizations would give way to a uniform federal system, whereby TLC-related medical recording, Medicaid, and paper formalities would be made more hassle-free.