Preventive Care is our answer to lowering cost

As we all know some businesses do it better than other businesses, thus the creation of competition and free market. In health care services, there are many hands in the mix from the small primary doctor offices, to the largest health care institutes. However, all are policy driven by federal, state, and local governments. In our great bureaucracy, these policies can be conflicting, even stifling at times. It has lead to fragmentation of our health system and caused large administrative overhead and cost.

We must face the facts that there are some very bad policies at work in our system that promote poor health habits, over medicating of patients’, bottlenecks access, which causes our lower socioeconomic class to find treatment in the most expensive area of our system, acute care; which fails to address any preventive measures.
Pharmaceutical companies have integrated themselves in every area of our health system and rewards doctors to prescribe their medications, while insurance companies raise premiums whenever they feel a Government policy retards their profits, which has been most noticeable in recent news. I could go on and on but then this would turn into a several page essay.

It is a simple rationale that it is far cheaper to advert a catastrophe then to address the malady that issues from one. So it is in health care and preventive measures and the integration of those measures within our system at every level, starting with the provider but ending in empowering the patient.

Prevention and treatment of chronic conditions similarly require regular (nonsymptom-driven) screening and counseling for health behavior change, involve ongoing plan care and proactive follow-up, depend on active patient involvement in decision making and adherence, and require links to supportive community resources and services (Glasgow, Eakin, et al., 2001).

To better integrate our health system, our focus must be on preventive care and open access to such care so lower socioeconomic class will seek help there then in an expensive acute care setting that address the malady but fails to address the underlining cause. National, state, and local performance mandates should issue greater reimbursements and payment for increasing performance policies as they raise health statistics within their area of control. Address Managed care regulatory standards that promote better performance measurements and accreditations (e.g., NCQA/HEDIS). Policies in health plan level: Organizational mandates/incentives, clinical information systems (e.g., health informatics systems) and technical assistance to promote favorable outcomes centered in evidence-based information. Office-level reminder systems, which details local opinion leaders, and finally individual provider level; CME strategies. (McKinlay, J. B., 1995).

Reference:

Glasgow, R.E., Orleans, C.T., Wagner, E.H., Curry, S. J., & Solberg, L.I. (2001). Does the Chronic Care
Model serve also the template for improving prevention? Milbank Quarterly, 79, 579-612.

McKinlay, J. B., (1995). The new public health approach to improving physical activity and autonomy
In older populations. In E. Heikkinen (Ed), Preparation for aging (pp.87-103). New York: Plenum.