Question

nstruuctions The textbook claims the Affordable Care Act supports population health by expanding coverage improving quality, expanding prevention and health promotion, and promoting population health activity. In your experience, do you believe any of those four target goals have been ineffective? Support your answer with reasons and research. Important notice: Your initial contribution should have a minimum of 150 words Note: Please read the instructions provided in the following links before submitting your entry Unread Search entries or author

In which one has the Affordable Care Act not supported : expanding coverage, improve quality, prevent expansion and health promotion, promoted health activity.

Answer 1

In my experience the target goal that has been ineffective is ‘improving quality’.

One of the primary goals of ACA was to improve the quality of care in the health system in USA. ACA created three programs – HACRP (The Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program), HRRP (The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program) and HVBP (The Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program). These programs and initiatives were aimed to improve quality of care for Medicare patients. The plans aimed to reward acute-care hospitals with incentive payments. The incentive payments were related to certain clinical processes as well as outcomes and aspects like efficiency and safety.

In reality ACA and the above mentioned programs failed to improve quality in a systematic manner and tangible manner. This is due to the fact that program like HACRP was able to penalize only teaching hospitals, safety-net hospitals and hospitals with high quality scores on other instruments. Majority of hospitals were not penalized and was left outside the purview of ACA. These programs failed to account for adequate risk adjustment and as a result hospitals that were burdened with treating poorest patients were made to bear the burden of financial penalties. Majority of other types of hospitals got away and did not have to bear the burden of financial penalties. The ACA failed to improve quality as it did not address the issue of unintended consequences related to worsening inequity between hospitals treating the wealthy and the poor in a proper manner.

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