Health Care Competition as the Major Problem

Competition in health care is becoming a major issue, because health care organizations are fighting for the best doctors, patients are fighting for the best treatments, and insurance companies are raising their premiums. Competition is a serious problem due to bad choices being made by hospitals, health plans, and businesses. This paper will explore in more detail the reason why there is so much competition in health care and why health care is steadily rising. Describe the different forms of competition that take place among various types of health care organizations.

The different forms of competition for health care organizations would be price, quality, service and convenience. Doctors are willing to take on patients who can pay for their treatments instead of patients that have way of paying. “Physicians may compete for patients who are able to pay for services and do not health insurance, or for patients who have their expenditures paid for by third party insurers so physicians compete on a non-price basis, based on location, colleagues’ referrals, and reputation.

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” (Rivers & Glover, 2010).

Hospitals compete for the best doctors offering better equipment or highly trained employees. Hospitals compete also for patients where they offer better services and cheaper prices. Insurance companies compete to have the best premiums, benefits and access to great health care insurance. There is a lot of competition in health care, but what this really boils down to is how well patients are being taken care of and if they are satisfied with their choices of doctors, hospitals and health insurance.

Evaluate the benefits and pitfalls of competition in health care and suggest alternatives if competition was not the primary driver of operations in the U. S. health care system. Some of the benefits of competition would be Patient’s bill of rights, insurance companies taking pre-existing conditions, wealthier people paying taxes on health insurance, medical devices, and Medicare. Other benefits would be for those individuals who cannot afford health insurance to not be penalized for not having insurance, and children being able to stay on their parent’s health insurance until age 26.

The pitfalls of competition would be hospitals will have to be punished if a patient is readmitted after being discharged from their facility within a certain number of days. Some physicians will have to sell their practices to hospitals because of overhead. The quality of health care has decreased while the cost has increased. Another pitfall would be employers cutting their employees hours from full-time to part-time so they do not have to pay for their employee’s health insurance. “Health care reform takes small steps toward addressing this problem but trends toward pay performance and bundled payment could worsen this mismatch if they fail to account for the needs of underserved patients and practices serving them.” (Fiscella, 2011). An alternative if competition was not the primary driver would be hospitals and doctors seeing patients free of charge. Patients would not have to worry about paying co-pays or medical bills, because there would be more free clinics offering medications for cancer treatments, diabetes and other conditions.

Explain the elements of successful competition and the use of competitive intelligence. A successful competition would be hospitals and doctors coming together to perform care for patients. Competitive intelligence in health care is observing other health care organizations to see if they are alike and to figure out what their next move is. “Competitive intelligence or business intelligence is a tool of business leader, a competent central vision resulting from an extensive report about a competitor company that continually seeks to exploit its weak points, everything to avoid surprises competitive.” (Bucur & Pribac, 2010). In order for competition to be successful between hospitals, drug companies, and physicians they all need to provide cheaper prices, quality care, and discounts.

Describe the influence competition has on the services offered by health care organizations and the choices patients have. The influence competition has on services from health care organizations is that every organization is different some offer certain services like MRI’s, CT scans, and lab work. While other organizations offer other types of services like rehabilitation, prenatal care, and HIV classes. Patients should always be a part of their treatment plans and they should know all the information about the procedures that are being done on them. Patients should be allowed to choice what doctor or hospital they want to go with. Patients would like to have accessibility to doctors or specialists without having to go far away from their homes.

Conclusion

Health care competition is becoming the most talked about issue with hospitals and doctors. If hospitals and doctors worked together there would be fewer problems, because patients would not have to go too far to see their doctors, and they could go to the hospital of their choice. Every day there is something new being invented or used in the medical field which can be competition for all health care systems. There has to be better way to deal with all the competition that is going on in this field.

References
Bucur, O. N., & Pribac, L. I. (2010). Intelligence key Weapon Competitiveness. Annals of DAAAM & Proceedings, 1473-1474. Web.b.ebschost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu. Fiscella, K. (2011). Health Care Reform and Equity: Promise, Pitfalls, and Prescriptions. Annals of Family Medicine, 9 (1), 78-84. Doi: 10.1370/afm.1213 Rivers, A. P., & Glover, H. S. (2010). Health Care Competition, Strategic mission, and patient satisfaction: research model and propositions. NCBI. www.ncbi.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC28656781