Essay Example on Americans Paying More for Healthcare: Unsustainable Costs and Limited Knowledge

Healthcare charges are increasing at a disparate rate comparative to the gross domestic product. Americans are turning out to be progressively conscious that they are not receiving their currency's value. Limited knowledge about the expenses incurred to offer patient care and deficiency of acquaintance about how the costs related to the results attained, resulted in the cost upsurges. To bring about sustainability, healthcare establishments need to recognize and take care of waste in healthcare then cut the overall rate of care. US healthcare expenses now go beyond 17% of GDP, plus they remain to increase (Fei & Isa, 2010). Other countries incur a smaller amount of their GDP on health care services but have a similar rising trend. Justifications are not difficult to establish. The maturation of populaces and the growth of new behaviors are the cause of some of the rises. Obstinate enticements also underwrite Third-party payers such as (insurance firms as well as governments). Third-party payers compensate for processes conducted instead of results attained, and patients take on less accountability for the expenses of the healthcare amenities they claim (Fei & Isa, 2010). Several tools have been recommended for mitigation of the rising healthcare costs; for instance, Activity-based costing.

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Activity-based costing (ABC) is a bookkeeping implement that allots costs sustained over a corporation's practice of offering products and amenities to the customer (Health Catalyst, 2020). In health care, this frequently is founded on amenities linked provision of care to patients, which can be practical or time grounded. Activity-based costing offers an extra precise service valuation technique, resulting in additional precise pricing choices (Fei & Isa, 2010). It grows appreciation of expenses and price drivers, then makes expensive and non-value accumulation actions extra perceptible, permitting executives to decrease or eradicate them.

With ABC, the healthcare institutions can thoroughly approximate the cost components of complete goods, undertakings, and amenities, that might aid in updating the institutions choice to either: Detect and eradicate those goods and amenities that are non-profitable and decrease the costs of those that are costly (Askarany, 2011). The thorough approximation can also help in the identification and eradication of the processes they deem unproductive and assign concepts that result in a very similar creation at an enhanced service. Understanding the costs incurred and explaining them to the customers will help change the perception of healthcare costs (Cole, 2019).

Conclusion

The implementation of the ABC methodology in healthcare will allocate the healthcare facilities s resource charges through events to the services offered to its clients. Generally, ABC will be utilized to comprehend services and customer budget as well as a productivity based on the provided services.

References

Askarany, D. (2011). Interaction between Target Costing and Activity-Based Costing: Is Target Costing a True Costing Technique?. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1888824

Cole, S. A. (2019). Managing activity-based funding using costing data and activity-based budgets. Clinical Costing Techniques and Analysis in Modern Healthcare Systems, 128-143. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-5082-2.ch006

Fei, Z., & Isa, C. (2010). Factors Influencing Activity-Based Costing Success: A Research Framework. International Journal Of Trade, Economics, And Finance, 1(2), 144-150. https://doi.org/10.7763/ijtef.2010.v1.26

Health Catalyst. (2020, June 2). Activity-based costing in healthcare improves outcomes. https://www.healthcatalyst.com/success_stories/activity-based-costing-in-healthcare-upmc