A reflection on the Present Condition, Cost and Treatments

Taking the above fearsome numbers into consideration, the twenty first century has seen several practices aimed at reduction of healthcare costs and increase in the number of people insured. Despite all their attempts, healthcare remains a mammoth crisis situation in the United States of America. This article will throw light on some of the prevalent problems that have directly or indirectly contributed towards the growth of this crisis. 

State of the art technologies in the field of Medicine rise in serious chronic illnesses, intense decay of the honorary doctor-patient relationship – these are some of the many factors that have had very serious effects on the overall state of healthcare in America. The very mention of healthcare puts forward the looming topic of "insurance". When a country's share of healthcare to the GDP of the country stands at 16%, isn't it a primary lookout of the Government to ensure that every citizen is insured? Today, almost 16% of the total population in the United States remains uninsured. This results in serious problems like diminishing quality of health and early deaths to mark a few. 

THE CON DISASTER

During the mid nineties, with an aim of providing good quality healthcare alongside tapping the escalating costs, the concept of CON (Certificate of Need) was introduced. Essentially, the policy of the CON was to certify any additional medical practices that a hospital decides to adopt, both new and expensive, before its implementation. The CON policy was introduced in the field of cardiac care and several studies made on it have shown that prior to its implementation, patients deaths at the end of a coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) was as high as three to 4 times in comparison to the present situation. However, during the late nineties, studies by Vivian et al have shown that there has been no corresponding increase in the quality of CABG with the implementation of CON regulations. Cardiac CON policies usually require that the general heart surgery that it supports must also provide hematology, nephrology, neurology, 24-hour priority services and the like. Even though the above might seem like an effort towards increasing the quality of healthcare, there has been no evidence ever since its implementation; that the CON regulations have had any significant effects within CABG when compared with the usual practices. 

THE COVETED ‘WHY' 

There have been several factors associated with the current healthcare crisis in the United States. Let's take a look at some of the key ones. A study made by a team at the Johns Hopkins University concludes that one in every four patients believes that doctors are exposing them to several unnecessary risk factors. The most common of them all is anxiety. Today, several cost effective treatments are sadly not used as much as they ought to be, thereby increasing the patient's financial burden. This ultimately has an indirect effect on anxiety. A lot of researchers agree that the doctor-patient relationship has turned ugly over the years. The most important factor for this is deemed to be perception; in other words, the doctor might see his patient as just a case that requires adequate diagnosis or treatment while on the other hand, the patient might see his doctor as means towards well being and also as someone who could lend a caring ear to his problems. However, the doctors in addition to stating a contradiction to the above perception go out to explain that due to the criticality of time and the increasing number of patients and fatal diseases; it has become increasingly difficult to keep an eye on every single aspect of patient care. The biggest challenge for them is to maintain a balance between highest levels of quality when it comes to providing care and also stay focused towards cutting down costs. However, they go on to state that the ‘patient care' is never compromised. Doctors also blame some of the medical organizations to an extent. They say that when an organization is run by people who are in no way associated with the Field of Medicine and are pure entrepreneurs, then the focus is only on efficiency not care and many a times, the two are not even related. This ability of the management to pull the strings in a hap-hazard manner has compromised patient care at the expense of financial stability more than once over the last century. Finally, there is the ever-present ‘Insurance' problem. A lot of people in the US would definitely agree with me when I say that there is no direct relationship between health insurance and ‘Medical care'. Doctors often complain that the two do not translate into one another, especially in cases when they cannot afford to analyze patients at unrealistically low rates. At the end of the day, making individual insurance mandatory would barely solve 1/40th of the healthcare problem. 

Many Healthcare professionals admit the problem that the industry has been facing over the years and comment that just like how one would take care of  one's belongings and personal purchases, it would be best if patients respect the magnitude of care that they're given like making on-the-spot payment for the treatment received amidst other measures. 

The subsequent piece would bring out some of the measures and actions that have attempted to bring this chronic Healthcare scene within the survival threshold.