Healthcare Delivery Outside the Hospital - Essay Example

 Factors for the emergence of Medicare services outside the hospital setting.

Certain conditions e.g. diabetes do not require hospitalization hence outpatient care is essential to prevent their onset, control acute episode or manage a chronic condition; reduce the need for hospital admission or inpatient care.

            Need for a reduction in medical cost. There is a need to reduce the cost of Medicare for the populace especially those that have low income. Outpatient is convenient as there is no cost of admission incurred at times cost of travel is highly reduced in the case of ambulatory services (Jain, Seidman & Blumenthal, 2010).

             The need to improve the accessibility of Medicare to various patients who otherwise would not access the same. For example, those who at times are unable to travel due to acute conditions can access health care by having specialists accord them home-based care. This further improves health care quality and customer satisfaction.

 Advantages of outpatient care

          Outpatient services are generally less costly as compared to inpatient treatment as the patient saves the admission fee and convenient for managing certain conditions that do require admission e.g. diabetes which only requires insulin injection. Such services also accord one the opportunity to attend work or school, which is in sharp contrast with residential or inpatient treatment. Moreover, outpatients have the opportunity to stay with their loved ones.                   

 Disadvantages of outpatient care   

    The outpatient services are at times limiting when complex procedures e.g. chemotherapy are required. Such require pre-installed equipment which is majorly found in hospitals.

  Impact of affordable health care act on outside of the hospital healthcare setting.

       In my opinion, the Affordable Health Care Act will discourage alternative medical care and put the care back to the hospitals (DeVore & Champion, 2011). The main reason why outpatient care thrives is that there exists a fraction of the populace that cannot afford the inpatient services. The act seeks to compel employers to insure their employees and where necessary provide subsidies for the same. This will make health care affordable to most people hence they will abandon outpatient services leading to the reduction of the same (Kaufman, 2008).

Conclusion

Various stakeholders in the field of health care can enhance health care provision and accessibility by adopting and implementing policies that are complementary. The outpatient services are very affordable to a bigger percentage of the population and hence require proper legislation and support from the government and private entities.