Service Line Development T3

Trends and Policy Initiatives that can Impact the Healthcare\Organization

The healthcare status keeps changing and this directly affects the cost, accessibility, as well as the quality of care. The increasing healthcare costs, as well as the reduced reimbursements from insurances and other payers, has led to rigorous competition within the healthcare industry. This makes provision of high-quality care and personalized care a challenge. The quality of care provided by healthcare organizations is evaluated by the HCAHPS. The scores by the HCAHPS are in accordance with the Affordable Care Act which emphasizes on value-based buying; this has direct impact on the patient satisfaction (Larrat et al, 2014). Nonetheless, if the healthcare organizations fail to have adequate number of staff members to provide effective care to patients, this may affect the quality of care provided to patients. Therefore, it is important for healthcare organizations to embrace resourcefulness and innovativeness. However, the medical decisions by physicians are often influenced by the insurance policies as well as Medicare requirements, rather than the patient’s best treatment decisions. This is making running of healthcare organizations such a challenge (Larrat et al, 2014). Therefore, Trinity Community Hospital needs to not only reduce its medical costs and at the same time provide high-quality care. Trinity Community Hospital can achieve this by ensuring that patients are provided with good quality care by ensuring that the staff members are aware of the national healthcare trends, as well the impact of these trends on cancer, orthopedic, and cardiovascular services.    Service Line Development Essay Paper

Orthopedic Service Line

The selected service line is orthopedic. Generally, the costs associated in treating patients requiring orthopedic services is high yet the cost of the medical care is not individually billed to the patient but to the hospital and this significantly increases healthcare costs to the hospital. Generally, bundled payment when it comes to medical care is done according to the projected cost of treatment services (Xie & Calvin, 2017).

From the case study, the community does not have adequate orthopedic services yet the aging population keeps increasing the need for the already strained and scarce services. There is also a shortage of physicians and this further aggravates the situation.

Impact

Research has shown that healthcare organizations are just like any other business and thus they need to generate more money than they spend in order to ensure sustainability. However, with the progressively reducing reimbursement rates, rising overhead costs, as well as the increasing demand of healthcare services, healthcare organizations end up spending more money than they generate (Xie & Calvin, 2017). For example, the costs associated with orthopedic medical services is very high yet sometimes the projected cost is relatively low.

Therefore, it is necessary for Trinity Community Hospital to reduce costs associated with orthopedic services, such as reducing hospital length of stay for orthopedic patients. This can be achieved by designing a fast-tracked recovery program where patients are admitted on the day of the operation, starting physical therapy, utilizing less costly analgesics, reducing the use of narcotics because narcotics have been shown to slow ambulation of patients, as well as the ability to perform activities of daily living. Reducing hospital length of stay even by a single day can significantly reduce healthcare costs and thus ensure the profitability of the hospital, and specifically the orthopedic unit (Xie & Calvin, 2017).

In addition, lack of adequate orthopedics in the department can significantly affect the accessibility of orthopedic services on that service line. If the accessibility of the services is affected and also if patients are not attended on time, such patients may not be repeat customers. Such patients will also not refer to other patients because word of mouth may spread that there are long waiting times in the hospital.  The management at Trinity Community Hospital can address this issue by recruiting enough number of orthopedists in the orthopedic service line to ensure that the patients are well attended and do not have to wait for long. This can lead to patient/customer retention, loyalty, and well as referral customer and thus increase the profitability of this service line (Xie & Calvin, 2017).

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Legislation

One of the legislations likely to arise from the current health trends is demanding of price transparency for all healthcare organizations. Legislation that regulates prices charges by healthcare organizations and physicians can be a mechanism to reign high healthcare costs (Vogenberg & John, 2018). To support reimbursement challenges, a legislation that bans surprise medical bills by capping pay to doctors, hospitals and air ambulances should be implemented. The legislation should obligate hospitals and physicians to bill the patients timely and any bill arriving more than a specific period, for example 30 days after treatment should not be paid (Bonnie, 2015).

Secondly, increasing healthcare costs can lead to regulations such as requiring hospitals to implement appropriate strategies to reduce the hospital length of stay. For example, the legislation should require hospitals to avail the appropriate resources such as implementing latest electronic health records (EHR) to make sure that the hospital discharges patients safely and promptly. Technologies such as electronic health records (EHR) have been shown to speed up the discharge process (Baek et al, 2018). In addition, the hospital should be required to address patients’ clinical, social, and financial needs. For example, hospitals should be required to procure funds for more resources to expand more staff members to facilitate optimal provision of services and timely discharge.

Lastly, the lack of adequate physicians such as orthopedics in the orthopedics service line can lead to legislation that requires hospitals to employ an adequate number of healthcare providers by having an appropriate patient: physician ratio. For example, regulations can demand a certain level of employees in an organization depending on the patient volume and the population the hospital serves. This will ensure that the accessibility of healthcare services is improved and also the long-waiting time by patients reduces (Xie & Calvin, 2017).

References

Baek H, Cho M, Kim S, Hee H, Song M & Yoo S, 2018, Analysis of length of hospital stay using electronic health records: A statistical and data mining approach, PLoS One, 13(4).

Bonnie B. (2015). QuickBooks 2016: The Missing Manual: The Official Intuit Guide to QuickBooks 2016. New York: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Larrat P, Rita M & Randy V. (2014). Impact of Federal and State Legal Trends on Health Care Services. PT. 37(4), 224-226.

Xie Z & Calvin O. (2017). Associations Between Waiting Times, Service Times, and Patient Satisfaction in an Endocrinology Outpatient Department: A Time Study and Questionnaire Survey. Inquiry. 1(1).

Vogenberg, R & John S. (2015). Key Strategic Trends that Impact Healthcare Decision-Making and Stakeholder Roles in the New Marketplace. Am Health Drug Benefits. 11(1), 48–54.

Vogenberg, R & John S. (2018). Healthcare Trends for 2018. Am Health Drug Benefits. 11(1), 48–54.  Service Line Development Essay Paper

INTRODUCTION

Healthcare does not operate in a vacuum. Trends that emerge in the national market are influenced by legislation, delivery of care, changes in payment methods, and social and economic conditions. Healthcare professionals monitor policy at the national level by reviewing legislative initiatives and analyzing rules and regulations. Understanding healthcare policy helps in facilitating grant reviews and in developing new program initiatives. Legislation may cause changes in the way hospitals and healthcare providers deliver patient care. It is beneficial for hospitals to incorporate the national trends, policy, and legislation in determining the appropriate path for selecting service lines. You will use the “Service Line Development Case Study” to complete this task. Imagine that you have received a memo asking you to identify national trends, policy, and legislation and to summarize the impact it will have on the new service line. The proposed service lines are the following:

• Orthopedic center
• Cardiovascular center
• Cancer center

REQUIREMENTS

No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. An originality report is provided when you submit your task that can be used as a guide.

You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.

1.  Identify current national healthcare trends and policy initiatives that may affect the healthcare organization evident in the attached “Service Line Development Case Study.”, using the links below
2.  Discuss how the identified trends impact the delivery of healthcare in the case study.
3.  Discuss possible legislation that may result from these trends.
4.  When you use sources, include all in-text citations and references in APA format.

RUBRICS:

ARTICULATION OF RESPONSE (CLARITY, ORGANIZATION, MECHANICS)

The candidate provides adequate articulation of response.

1. TRENDS:

The candidate identifies current national healthcare trends and policy initiatives that may affect the healthcare organization evident in the attached “Service Line Development Case Study.”

A1. IMPACT:

The candidate provides a logical discussion, with sufficient detail, of how the identified trends impact the delivery of healthcare in the case study.

A2. LEGISLATION:

The candidate provides a logical discussion, with sufficient detail, of possible legislation that may result from the trends.

1. SOURCES

When the candidate uses sources, the candidate provides appropriate in-text citations and references accurately or with only minor deviations from APA style, OR the candidate does not use sources.  Service Line Development Essay Paper