Impact of Healthcare exchanges on outpatient treatment
Healthcare exchanges are online platforms that allow small businesses and individuals to compare the many health insurance plans. The reason for this is to facilitate the purchasing of coverage that best suits their needs. They were established as a portion of the affordable care act to allow those with low to moderate incomes to get coverage programs. Examples of the coverage programs are Medicaid and health insurance program for children or monetary assistance to buying private coverage. The essay discusses the impact that the healthcare exchanges have to outpatient treatment.
To begin with, the efficiency of healthcare services has been improved. It is through the introduction of telemedicine that health care professionals manage to evaluate, diagnose, and also treat patients from a distance. Telemedicine enhances the healthcare services to be offered from home and thus reducing the long queues by the outpatients as they wait for services. Outpatients often avail themselves in hospitals frequently for checkups, but to some, this is no longer the case. Also, previous medical records were kept in files; email or fax was used to send patients laboratory results. Since the formation of healthcare exchanges, documents are now held in computers so that they can be electronically transferred.
Furthermore, it has also improved the quality of the services offered at the hospitals. Records are kept electronically to allow patients’ doctors to share the diagnoses among themselves. Keeping of records electronically enhances the safety of the information. It also enables outpatients to acquire services at any given hospital without necessarily being referred back to the initial doctor. Also, through the introduction of telemedicine, patients can be monitored away from the clinical setting at all times; this ensures quality medical outcomes to patients’ right from their homes.
Healthcare exchange reduces the extra cost to be incurred in hospitals. Outpatients can seek preventive treatment because it is covered in health care exchange hence reducing the extra costs meant to be paid. Other health complications covered are an addiction, chronic diseases, and mental health problems. These complications are not covered by other insurances because they are expensive to treat. Preventive treatment cut on the cost incurred by an outpatient because it allows early treatment before a given disease worsens. Through this more of the outpatients can avail themselves to be diagnosed and treated at the early stages of any illness.
However, outpatients do not get enough attention from the doctors. Medical professionals meant to serve all the people are few, and the ratio of doctor to patients increased when healthcare exchange was formed. The reason for this is that most outpatients come to receive preventive care at no extra cost. With the introduction of healthcare exchanges, a large number of people became insured. The increasing number of patients necessitates the increase in the number of health professionals to assist in serving patients, which has not been done hence leading to large queues at the hospital. The healthcare exchange has therefore resulted in the deterioration of the outpatient’s treatment services.
In conclusion, health care exchanges help in facilitating the provision of friendly health services to the patients. It has enhanced the provision of more efficient, quality, and also cheaper services in the hospital. However, the health care exchanges have led to long queue in hospitals hence affecting the outpatients’ schedules. Its significance has contributed a lot on solving numerous challenges and establishing a society based on equality thus upholding the value of people under different circumstances.