The Necessary Essentials for Financial Viability in Healthcare Paper Example

Introduction

Financial viability is the ability of an institution to govern the resources that they own in the form of finances in such a pleasant manner that the income generated from within surpasses the outflow in the form of expenses. In healthcare especially in hospitals and other health institutions, financial viability is of so much essence for them to continue running smoothly. Several factors must are considered and decisions made in such an amicable way to prevent the wastage of resources. Measures must as well be put in place to avoid wastage whereby every party involved is expected to play a critical role in ensuring that there is a steady workflow. In healthcare, various stakeholders come in the form of consumers as patients, providers, payers, suppliers, and regulators. Everyone in this group is expected to play a critical role in ensuring the quality of healthcare is of a high standard as well as the costs are contained in a favorable way that will not hurt either. When one of the stakeholders fail to perform their mandate, there are consequences, and so the purpose of this discussion is to establish the role that all these stakeholders play in ensuring financial viability as well as essentials to meet standard healthcare.

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Roles Played by Healthcare Stakeholders

Consumers

Consumers in healthcare are also known as patients. These are the people who receive healthcare services and have a mandate in maintaining financial viability. Patient awareness is the crucial thing in supporting healthcare in a cost-effective way (Russo, 2016). This can be achieved through cooperation with doctors for them to get treated. Cooperating patients make it easy for doctors to prescribe them hence saving a lot of time and resources in terms of medicines and other forms of treatment administered to them. According to (Elrod & Fortenberry, 2017), the kind of cooperation saves unnecessary spending that would have been incurred on problems that did not exist in the first place. It is therefore important for consumers in healthcare to have the knowledge and realize that they play an important role in cutting cost.

Providers

They are also known as doctors. Involves a team of healthcare practitioners who are authorized to carry out treatment. They play a crucial role in maintaining financial viability in healthcare. A health practitioner is expected to use their knowledge to administer the right prescription on a patient. This reduces the cost of buying extra supplies wasted in restocking. A health practitioner is as well responsible for advising patients on the right dose they should take to reduce wastage on unnecessary prescriptions.

Payers

Payers come in the form of financial institutions other than the patients that cater to the patient's bill like insurance firms. Payers can as well be parents, relatives, friends or even donors who offer financial support in providing for the patient's statements. Payers ought to reduce paying for unnecessary bills in hospitals. Some patients are fond of using their insurance in the wrong way by going for treatment even when conditions do not call for it. This encourages wastage from the other end of suppliers to the hospital itself by buying products more often than necessary. It is, therefore, the role of payers to advice their clients accordingly on the need of cutting cost by avoiding unnecessary treatment (Al-Hanawi et al., 2018).

Suppliers

Suppliers are entities or individuals that provide hospitals with drugs, anesthetics, medical gloves, syringes, lab coats, and other medical requirements in hospitals. Suppliers take the form of big entities or just individuals who play a minimal role in supplying basics such as foodstuffs. Without the suppliers, hospitals would not run due to a lack of basic equipment and amenities such as food and elementary equipment. They play a vital role in ensuring that hospitals do not run out of supplies at the expense of the patients hence have an equivalent position in preventing wastage (Russo, 2016). They are responsible for making sure that hospitals do not spend on unnecessary products that may be no longer relevant in the market or cannot perform their role which is treatment. Suppliers are expected to provide the necessary prescriptions to hospitals, those that are to date as well as ensure quality (Elrod & Fortenberry, 2017). Suppliers are as well expected to provide the supplies on the right time to prevent shortage that may lead to losses.

Regulators

These are entities mostly government owned that are responsible for ensuring quality healthcare products that meet the required standards supplied to hospitals. It is their role as well to destroy any products that are regarded as harmful or expired to prevent it from being sold by unauthorized people. Regulators may go to the full length of controlling the financial charges on the healthcare services to the patients. It is believed that some hospitals extort patients who are unable to detect the real cost of some of the services that they are provided with. They also regulate the quality of hospitals and people responsible for supplying by ensuring that the right procedures are followed (Elrod & Fortenberry, 2017). When a regulator sleeps on their job, it can be disastrous. It is, therefore, their mandate to prevent losses incurred through buy and selling of counterfeit products. They should set up adequate measures to ensure quality adhered to and hospitals get the right products. This move is expected to cut the cost of having to buy bogus items.

What Health Policy Had the Greatest Impact on Health-Care?

Health care policies are usually set as a result of a sequence of unpleasant activities in the world of healthcare. They are regulatory policies made with the aim of improving healthcare. For many years, the government of the United States has had a harsh ride in providing adequate healthcare, especially to poor people. A lot of money has had to be allocated to healthcare to meet the standards of catering for all these people. The government finally came up with a policy to govern this and also cut cost by introducing mandatory health insurances for every citizen. This meant that citizens would contribute towards their insurance covers and during times of sickness or admission, the insurance cover would come in place to cater to the patient's bill. I consider this as a tremendous and most brilliant move any government would make not only to reduce spending but also ensure everyone gets the adequate treatment they need without the government having to step in for assistance (Cleverley et al., 2017).

Effects of Minimum Staffing Ratios in the Positive versus Normative Economic Dichotomy

Positive economics based on solving certain theories in the economy in this case which is healthcare while normative economies are based on facts of what should be done. The question of minimum staff ratios in hospitals which falls under both normative and positive economics is of significant impact (Elrod & Fortenberry, 2017). On a favorable view of the phenomenon, staffing ratios in healthcare whereby the number of doctors allocated to a particular unit is regulated are of much significance not only in curbing wastage but also reducing the costs of wages used in paying the doctors. In a tough economy, the measure can be applied to ensure that healthcare is provided at the same time reducing the cost (Al-Hanawi et al., 2018). However, the normative economic view of this disputes this fact. When the ratio of doctors to patients reduced, it will increase the responsibilities of a doctor hence giving them inadequate time to pay attention to the patient yet increasing the risk. The patients with a minimum number of doctors are least likely to get the attention needed hence putting their health at risk. It is therefore essential while making public policy as the above to consider both factors in decision making.

Conclusion

Financial viability is paramount as seen in the discussion above. From the government down to the consumers who are the patients, every stakeholder has a mandate in making sure that quality healthcare is met at the same time reducing costs. Increased costs hurt everyone in the economy, so teamwork is recommended by everyone performing their mandate as required. Governments should as well come up with measures to ensure adequate healthcare to everybody as well as properly regulate their bodies.

References

Al-Hanawi, M. K., Alsharqi, O., Almazrou, S., & Vaidya, K. (2018). Healthcare Finance in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: a qualitative study of householders' attitudes. Applied health economics and health policy, 16(1), 55-64.

Cleverley, W. O., & Cleverley, J. O. (2017). Essentials of health care finance. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Elrod, J. K., & Fortenberry, J. L. (2017). Centers of excellence in healthcare institutions: what they are and how to assemble them. BMC health services research, 17(1), 425.

Russo, F. (2016). What is CSR's Focus in Healthcare?. Journal of business ethics, 134(2), 323-334.