...not afford health care? What would you do if you had to pay a lump some for healthcare no matter your financial state? This is where healthcare exchanges under the Affordable Care Act can help those in need of health care, along with giving people a choice. The health care exchanges under the affordable care act allows people to “shop” for a healthcare plan no matter their financial state. Health care exchanges under the affordable care act in Washington State includes healthplanfinder. Healthplanfinder allows people to “shop” for insurance coverage such as apple care, different coverages for their family as well as for their employees. Health care exchanges under the affordable care act allow for a free market because people have a choice of what particular health coverage they want under the health care exchange. Many people choose not to have healthcare due to the fact that they cannot afford it. healthplanfinder.org is a Washington State based website that allows people to search for a healthcare plan that fits their lifestyle and needs. When looking up plans one must first make an account based on their annual income then choose if the plan is for themselves, family or employees. There is also an option to choose either a Health Maintenance Organization,HMO, or a Preferred Provider Organization, PPO. A HMO insurance coverage is where someone can only go to clinics or hospitals under that specific insurance. For example, if someone is covered by Group Health and needs to...
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...------------------------------------------------- What Would Health Care Reform Mean for Small Businesses and their Workers? ------------------------------------------------- What Would Health Care Reform Mean for Small Businesses and their Workers? HLTH 5120 Health Policy Issues Valerie G. Austin 16 May 2012 HLTH 5120 Health Policy Issues Valerie G. Austin 16 May 2012 Valerie G. Austin Dr. James M. Brasfield HLTH 5120 Health Policy Issues 16 May 2012 What Would Health Care Reform Mean for Small Businesses and their Workers? The Affordable Care Act Increases Choice and Saving Money for Small Businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but high health care costs and declining coverage have hindered small business owners and their employees. (Health Reform for Small Businesses/WhiteHouse.Gov) Part I Introduction The creation of the Affordable Care Act has brought many persons into a disagreement and has been in argument thru many administrations. Therefore we as a people should come together and set forth a plan that will be a benefit to All Americans. If we are to fix the economy of America we must repair the healthcare system. By reforming our healthcare system it will allow for you to maintain the coverage you have or seek another, delivering quality of care at a decreasing cost and waste elimination, allowing small businesses to remain competitive and reforming insurance coverage so there would never be a threat of losing coverage. “The Affordable Care Act requires states...
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...how it relies on the health information exchange (HIE) to conduct the exchange of electronic health information in a secure environment, is one of the key elements in getting all the disciplines across the industry to work together in building this national electronic network. Interoperability can be described by how data gets accessed and exchanged and the use of the exchanged data is shared between two or more information technology systems or devices (Naser, n.d.). The systems must be interoperable and share the data as usable knowledge. The health information exchange (HIE) is a process that allows health care professionals and patients to securely access and move clinical information among shared health information systems; while maintaining the integrity of information exchanged (HIMSS, 2014). Obviously, there are inherent risk in the process of exchanging data with the other systems and various groups if the exchange is not done in a secure manner while protecting patient confidence and privacy. All groups including clinical finance, admitting, even the software and medical vendors benefit greatly when data is exchanged securely and seamlessly. The health and human services (HHS) is in the stages of developing information exchange standards for interoperability and information exchange and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is responsible for advancing the connectivity and interoperability of health information technology...
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...Application 1 paper: Health Information Exchange Devry University Health HHinformation exchange is all about cost effective and efficient communication and providing services to enable the electronic sharing of health-related information through the use of sophisticated technology (State of New Jersey Department of Health). According to Health IT News, Covisint was named one of the top performing Health information exchange organization vendors and is a proven system that is simplifies technical care integration as well as enables health providers to deliver safer and more efficient care. Covisint is a Detroit-based technology company Covisint for payer/insurer-based HIE. Originally Covisint was strictly focused on the automotive industry but later diverted its technology to the healthcare industry. Covisint is a B2B Cloud company that provides a means for companies to transfer information securely and efficiently across their extended network. Due to their cloud platform their system gives companies the flexibility and convenience of enabling authorized users and devices to exchange information and ideas without limitations or boundaries by utilizing a single point entry. Covisint Healthcare’s HIE services connects and compiles data by using the information for achieved results. This is accomplished through a built in MPI, RLS, CDR and terminology and normalization services. Due to the intelligent capabilities of their healthcare information exchange system they provide...
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...How Does Your Business Fair? (The Impact of Affordable Care Act on Small Business) On March 23, 2010 President Obama signed into law the comprehensive health reform known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act informally known as Affordable Care Act. According to the Executive Office of the President, Council of Economic Advisors (EOP/CEA), “the key goals of health care reform is to reduce the growth rate of costs while maintaining choice of doctors and health plans and assuring quality, affordable health care for all Americans.” (The Economic Case for Health Care Reform, June 2009) The ACA is created to improve the overall quality of health care delivery and its’ systems while adding new consumer protections. In the ACA there is a clause known as the individual mandate. This mandate requires most U.S. citizens and legal residents to obtain qualifying health care insurance coverage, and if not will be required to pay a tax penalty. Effective January 1, 2014 employers with fifty or more employees that do not provide affordable health coverage will receive an assessment where for those businesses with less than fifty employees are exempt. States have created health benefit exchanges for individuals and small businesses through which health coverage can be purchased at affordable prices. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published several fact sheets and brochures highlighting what the ACA means for large and small businesses, individuals...
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...The Health Insurance Exchanges are online marketplaces for health insurance where Americans can obtain coverage from competing private health care providers. Shoppers can use a price calculator to see if they qualify for cost assistance subsidies and see side-by-side comparisons of qualified health plans ensuring the best deal for them and their family. Open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace only stays open for a limited time and you won’t be able to sign up outside of open enrollment without qualifying for a special enrollment period. The Health Insurance Marketplaces are estimated to provide up to 29 million people with affordable health insurance by 2019. During open enrollment, you can use the marketplace to enroll in a new...
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...The impact of legislature and regulations on quality of healthcare services The health plan exchange program required from the Patient Protection and affordable care Act (PPACA) became in effect as of 2014. This very important piece under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulates, that all states would be required to form health insurance exchanges. A marketplace in which people and businesses would be able to purchase healthcare coverage. In California this is what is known as Covered California. In creating these exchanges the state would also need to address different issues to ensure that these exchanges meet the needs of the public. Some of those regulatory issues would include how much the government would need to be involved in the management of these exchanges, structure and governance of the exchanges, requirements for insurance to also offer an option of exchanges and the structure of the exchanges themselves (Hoffman, 2012, p. 881). A few very important steps that may make a huge impact in healthcare regarding these government requires exchanges can be the future reportable results for 13 clinical quality measures set forth in order to compare the different exchanges. Some benefits to the new health plans exchange system is individuals can no longer be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition or premiums cannot increase due to health conditions. With the new health plan exchange requirement, it will now be required for plan to disclose their quality measure...
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...affordable health care under the updated health insurance reform legislation passed by the House. "The Affordable Health Care for America Act or H.R. 3962, blends and updates the three versions of previous bills passed by the House committees. "(Kruger, M. 2010) This bill is expected to ease the out-of-control costs of health insurance, introduce competition into the health care marketplace that will help maintain coverage affordability, protect people’s choices of doctors and health plans, and guarantee all Americans access to quality, consistent , affordable health care. The Association of American Medical Colleges stated in a Mar. 21, 2010 article; "we have taken the first step towards truly transforming health care in this country. This historic vote by the House of Representatives sets into motion long-overdue efforts to cover 32 million uninsured Americans and to assure their access to high-quality care. The nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals have expressed their full support for this bill to President Obama, and now stand ready to work with the administration and Congress to carry out these significant changes to our health care delivery system." (AAMC, 2010) The health care reform bill creates a shared responsibility for health care among individuals, employers and the government to ensure that all Americans have affordable essential health benefits. Two of the key components, and possibly the most debated or criticized of the Affordable Health Care for America...
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...Spurned By Lawmakers, Governor To Revise HUSKY Proposal Single Mom Swept Up In Capitol Fray Over Health Benefits May 06, 2013|By WILLIAM WEIR, bweir@courant.com, The Hartford Courant Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is revising a plan to significantly reduce money for HUSKY A, the state-funded insurance program for low-income children and their parents, after his proposal failed to clear a legislative committee. Under Malloy's plan, the change to HUSKY A would affect families whose incomes fall between 133 percent and 185 percent of the federal poverty level. Children of families at those income levels would still be eligible for HUSKY A benefits, but their parents would not Ben Barnes, Malloy's budget director, said Monday afternoon that the governor's office is revising the plan to ease the impact on HUSKY A recipients. According to the Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut, the governor's plan would eliminate HUSKY A health insurance for up to 37,500 people in an attempt to shift them toward coverage from the state health exchange, an online marketplace for health coverage that will be active later this year. The health exchange is part of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which was signed into law in 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court last year. The legislature's appropriations committee voted against the governor's plan last month, opting to keep the state benefits unchanged. The changes proposed initially to the HUSKY A program would save the state...
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...Affordable Care Act For the first time in U.S. history, every American will have access to quality, affordable health care under the updated health insurance reform legislation passed by the House. "The Affordable Health Care for America Act or H.R. 3962, blends and updates the three versions of previous bills passed by the House committees. "(Kruger, M. 2010) This bill is expected to ease the out-of-control costs of health insurance, introduce competition into the health care marketplace that will help maintain coverage affordability, protect people’s choices of doctors and health plans, and guarantee all Americans access to quality, consistent , affordable health care. The Association of American Medical Colleges stated in a Mar. 21, 2010 article; "we have taken the first step towards truly transforming health care in this country. This historic vote by the House of Representatives sets into motion long-overdue efforts to cover 32 million uninsured Americans and to assure their access to high-quality care. The nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals have expressed their full support for this bill to President Obama, and now stand ready to work with the administration and Congress to carry out these significant changes to our health care delivery system." (AAMC, 2010) The health care reform bill creates a shared responsibility for health care among individuals, employers and the government to ensure that all Americans have affordable essential health benefits. Two of...
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...Health Information Exchange (HIE) Christine Broger Health Information Process with Lab (HIT 141) Sonja Ross February 12, 2012 Health Information Exchange (HIE) refers to the process of reliable and interoperable electronic health-related information sharing conducted in a manner that protects the confidentiality, privacy, and security of the information. The development of widespread HIEs is quickly becoming a reality. Health Information Organizations (HIOs) are the organizations that oversee HIE. For HIOs to function, they must have the capability to employ nationally recognized standards to enable interoperability, security and confidentiality, and to ensure authorization of those who access the information. The HIE implementation challenge will be to create a standardized interoperable model that is patient centric, trusted, longitudinal, scalable, sustainable, and reliable. HIM principles will be critical to the success of HIEs and the nationwide health information network. HIEs, enabled by technology, are expected to improve the quality of care and patient safety and reduce healthcare costs. HIM professionals are among the experts stakeholders needed for health information exchange. Healthcare workflow, patient privacy rights, state and federal disclosure laws, secondary data, and data integrity issues (including duplicate patient records) are all part of the HIM professional’s body of knowledge. This knowledge base uniquely positions the HIM professional...
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... Health care is need throughout the world ranging from general care, emergency service and even mental health. Mental health comes in many forms and range from the younger generation to the older generation. Physical illness is easier to define than mental illness because it involves bodily disorders that can be seen in different ways. Mental illness can be a temporary emotional onset or a long lasting psychological breakdown. Services for mental illness are rendered in inpatient and outpatient setting, partial hospitalization, and also emergency care. Inpatient care consist of patients who did not respond to the treatment and are referred to long stay institutions. Outpatient care provides psychological services through an outpatient clinic. Partial hospitalization are facilities that provide treatment for patients during the day and allow them to return home at night. Emergency care is a 24 hour crisis center that deals with psychiatric emergencies. Professionals in the mental health care team provide the client with the best care possible. Technology is used in many mental health settings. Advancement in health care technology is moving at a rapid pace. New technology that is administered in the medicals office can reduce medical errors and prevent unnecessary mistakes. Technology information is available to support integrated electronic health record systems. This system helps the psychiatrists, physician, psychologists, social workers and other health and human...
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...Comparison Paper According to Getzen (2007), " money drives the health care system just as it does many other activities in a modern industrial society" (p. 2). Economy is driven by money. There will exchange of money for services rendered and the purchase of goods. In this day and age, you no longer are able to get goods or services by offering the seller a type of service or some other type of goods in exchange. Those equal barter trade is a thing of the past. In this paper, we will identify three terms usually used in economics and health care. We will compare these three terms and differentiate what it may mean in health care and economics. The three terms used for this purpose are trade, finance, and funds. Three Terms Trade As Getzen (2007) noted all people are involved in some kind of barter or trade, which could be goods, services, money, time, favors, and information for the purpose of being better. Both parties must benefit of the trade. Trading is exchanging. The term trading in economics, it is the exchange of goods between a buyer and a seller. The seller will offer particular goods for the exchange of money from the buyer. The seller will gain a profit from the trade which boost economy. Trade in terms of health care, though the same as exchanging goods, health care more so offer services and medical care. When a provider is offering services to a patient like seeing in primary care for annual medical history and physical, or an orthopedic surgeon offering...
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...State Insurance Exchanges as Catalysts to America’s Health Revolution HSC-536 W-Credit Saud Al Busmait (C060-797-64) 4/30/2012 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act signed into law on March 23rd 2010 are both essential portions of American legislation, as well as wildly misunderstood in their entirety. Personally, and from recent academic experience, I meant that to sound exactly as the previous sentence expressed. Prior to actually introducing the main topic of this paper, being the ACA’s health insurance exchanges, and beginning to write, I honestly found myself experiencing writers block. This was so strange as there is an endless amount of very straightforward information available on the topic. I realized that the problem was rather interesting. I felt the need to first express my opinions of the ACA on a simpler note, purely writing what I really felt and believed about it as the thoughts flowed. I now realize why that was so. I believe that it was my newfound understanding and strong, honest support for the act that I had to sell, to at least a sufficient degree, to whomever may read this college student’s paper. This “sufficient degree” of mine is a fair understanding of the long-term, national importance that the ACA’s provisions may serve, ultimately through the efficiency of health insurance exchanges. The national importance being served is exponentially expanding medical care to the U.S. population...
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...Health Care Re Health Care Reform There has been a lot of talk and debate lately over Health Care Reform, as people are trying to answer the question – Should a universally accessible health care system be implemented in the United States (US)? This ongoing highly debatable issue remains a hot topic among US citizens from all walks of life, from the very poor to the very wealthy. Health Care Reform affects everyone. The vast majority of the US population is very dissatisfied with the current state of health care. According to the ABC News and Washington Post cooperative poll, 57 percent of Americans aren’t satisfied with the overall system of health care (Langer, 2009). Consequently, the issue of the Health Care Reform was born, but before analyzing the actual aspects of this reform it will be wise to brush up on those major attitudes and concerns which occupy ordinary people and how they respond to the unfolding changes in the area of health care and social security. More than half of the American population is convinced that the Health Care Reform is necessary and it must be carried out by the government. Hence, the government plays a huge role in the health care transformation as it provides the nation with the health care plans and outlines other possibilities for medical coverage like the health insurance exchange. President Obama suggests his own plan of stability and security for all Americans. This plan is to provide more security and stability for those...
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