In an article located in the New York Times it seems as if medical practices are trying to come up with cost efficient ways to provide medical care to patients in the US. According to the bread for the world foundation 13% of the US are poor which means these people cannot afford the health care that they need to survive. In addition, the Kaiser Family Foundation stated that 42 million people were on Medicare and 52 million people are on Medicaid. With the constant debate in Washington about the deficit that we are in, it seems as if Health care will have to take a deep cut to the funding which means these sum 94 million people on Medicaid and Medicare might not receive the help from the government anymore. This article talks about what practices are doing to still try and serve the patients with 4 steps. These steps are limiting staff costs, spreading out fixed expenses, going electronic and monitor and tweak as needed.
Medical practices plan on limiting staff costs by cutting down the limit of people they have on staff. Dr. Flyer, a physician in Cardio Care in Chevy Chase, Md. stated, “The days of having multiple medical assistances help you with ever task is over”. Practices will no longer rely on part time temps rather they have Dr.’s who are qualified and are cross trained. Practices plan on stretching the dollar further by spreading out fixed expenses which means to us longer office hours the doctors can stay open and a smaller staff to become acquainted with. For example Hopewell Dental Care has four partners who see patients until 7 p.m and on Saturday to utilize the cost of office space (NY Times article, pg.1). The third way to cut cost is going electronic. The federal stimulus package included incentitives for up to $ 44,000 for switching to electronic medical records (NY Times article, pg.2) by switching to these new techniques it would be like a $ 44,000 bonus for practices that can go to a variety of different things like supplies, vaccines, and pay for physicians. The last way to cut cost of medical attention to patients is Monitoring and tweaking as needed which means having meetings and analysis to see if they are still within the margins needed to provide as many people as possible with medical attention.
Health care is a social issue because not only does it affect the US but it affects millions of people in 3rd world countries such as Sierra Leone in Africa, Haiti in the Caribbean, and Afghanistan in Asia. These people are all too poor to be able to afford health care which means they are dying from curable diseases every day. I think that it is important that practices here in the US are taking actions to reduce the cost of proving health care here in the US. These practices are involved in MOBILIZATION. These people are recognized that there is a problem and they are attempting to change social arrangements. I think that if these medical Dr.'s continue to work hard and reduce the cost the money being saved can be donated to other countries or it can have a domino effect and practices in countries all around the world can attempt to reduce cost as well.
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