U.S. Healthcare System: Battling Challenges Despite Strategic Plans.

The United States Healthcare system allows interested parties and providers to contribute to the provision of quality care. Consequently, various organizations, including insurance companies and volunteers, have been closely involved in the delivery of care. Some of the institutions have proven their overall readiness through the strategic plans developed to meet different issues such as human resources, network growth, and patient satisfaction. However, the institutions are still battling with other issues; the problems can be solved using various theories or models. The United Healthcare ensures the delivery of quality care at affordable prices and applies this theoretical model to solve the issues arising in the provision of quality care.

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Description of Health Organization or Network

The United Healthcare Group constitutes an organization interested in helping Americans receive quality care and other health services at affordable prices. The group offers citizens with the critical information needed in making crucial decisions about their health care delivery with the belief that the information will be beneficial in the long-term (United Healthcare Group, 2019). Over the years, the organization rose to acquire a pole position amongst the rest of the care organizations in the U.S because of the trust it offers members and other institutions globally. United Healthcare has a crucial role in the modernization of healthcare systems to improve care practices through innovative technologies and skilled workforce.

The primary objective of the healthcare network is to provide adequate healthcare services with reduced challenges for the next decades. Many people have significantly focused on the institution due to its commitment to providing quality healthcare services for future generations. The group adapts to the frequent changes and implementations occurring in the entire healthcare departments (United Healthcare Group, 2019). It keeps running efficiently by finding appropriate and practical ways of acquiring financial stability as the basis of providing affordable healthcare services. It focuses on personal healthcare experiences and simple solutions for strengthening the relationship between patients and physicians.

Overall Readiness of the Organization

United Health Group has demonstrated readiness in achieving its primary objective, which is to make healthcare more affordable and, therefore, accessible to all the members. The institution is on the frontline to lead and adapt to changes that meaningfully contribute to positive outcomes in healthcare delivery (United Healthcare Group, 2019). It concentrates on the crucial social needs of the populations, such as their abilities to access quality care at more affordable prices. As such, the firm is more interested in achieving higher levels of consumer satisfaction amongst all the stakeholders where trust exists as a fundamental value. The firm has a leading role in the efforts of the general modernization of healthcare as long as satisfaction, accessibility, and affordability are achieved.

The United Health Group strategically plans to strengthen and diversify competitive capacities to provide further market expansions and deliver consistent organic growth across all its centers. The strategic plan developed by the firm reveals the readiness to focus on core roles such as operating cost management, the performance of the medics, deliver values to the market served, and offering better customer experiences. The organization recognizes employees and engages them as part of the growth and readiness needed to achieve its mission.

Strategic Plan to Address Various Issues

The United Health Group needs a strategy that would help address various issues, including network growth, nurse staffing, resource management, and patient satisfaction. Strategic planning is an art that helps businesses to formulate strategies, implement, and evaluate them until the set goals are achieved. It is a broad concept that brings many factors into play, including finance, marketing, production, information systems, research and development, and management, amongst others (Abraham, 2012). The strategic plan for the United Health Group should be based on an all-round growth and development. As such, it should be focused on the following aspects: cutting costs, partnership with the federal government, acquisition of more organizations, and enhancing turnover rates.

The organization needs to cut down overhead costs to offer more resources to engineer growth and development. Reductions in administrative costs would be fundamental in the primary objective of making healthcare more affordable and accessible. Partnership with the federal government is valuable for the United Health Group since it is the largest partner where it can benefit from through the federally allocated funds to offer more and alternative ways of strengthening other healthcare providers or parties. The acquisition of more firms or organizations offering similar or other healthcare-related services would help the United Health Group increase customer base and even expand to newer markets. The enhancement of turnover rates would increase the retention of a more skilled and experienced workforce with the abilities to promote more growth and development of the organization in the future.

Organizational Culture Issue

Currently, the biggest concern for the organization includes the legal accusations related to the overbilling of Medicare for years (Walsh, 2017). The organization has been accused of a scheme that allowed insurers and subsidiary organizations to overcharge Medicare improperly. As such, millions or billions of money could have been lost, which could creep in trust issues not only with the customers but also the employees. Additionally, the organization lost a case that prevented a former executive from working at the venture created by three large corporations, including JP Morgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway, and Amazon (Abelson, 2019). The employee was denied the chance to work in the organizations due to the fear of revealing the organizational secrets to a competitor.

The organizational culture facing the United Health Group is trust issues, particularly amongst the employees and providers. The organization is battling legal cases that have critical impacts on its reputation, a critical asset for many organizations, especially in marketing. The organization needs to develop a culture where trust is highly valued, recognized, and rewarded to avoid the occurrence because it can affect the strategic plan of the group.

Proposed Theoretical Model for Implementation of the Strategic Plan

The appropriate theory for the implementation of the strategic plan for this organization is the Mintzberg strategic management theory. The author believed that a strategy comprises five key elements, including plan, pattern, position, perspective, and ploy (Mintzberg, 1987). The model holds that these five concepts would help implement an effective strategy because they are aimed at the future and long-term facets of the organization. It incorporates significant factors that influence a business, such as competition and organizational culture. This model is appropriate for the implementation of the strategic plan because it views the process as a formalized procedure to achieve an articulated result. Consequently, it is an integrated system of decisions with high structures of formalization and systemization of the plan until the desired outcomes are achieved. A consideration of the critical elements of implementation would help the organization to test, evaluate, and amend the strategic plan.

Conclusion

United Health Group is an association that seeks to increase healthcare access and affordability of the Americans. It aims at eliminating the existing challenges to access to quality care for the future. The organization is ready to address issues related to caring services by being flexible to adapt to changes and strengthening and diversifying for market expansion. The strategic plan of the organization relates to cutting costs, partnership with the federal government, acquisition of more organizations, and enhancing turnover rates. The organization suffers from a lack of trust, which affects organizational culture. The Mintzberg strategic management theory is the most appropriate theory to guide the implementation plan.

References

Abelson, R. (2019). UnitedHealth Loses Case to the Health Venture Begun by Amazon, Berkshire-Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase. New York Times. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/health/amazon-berkshire-hathaway-jpmorgan-health.htmlAbraham, S. C. (Ed.). (2012). Strategic planning: A practical guide for competitive success. Emerald Group Publishing.

Mintzberg, H. (1987). The strategy concept I: Five Ps for strategy. California Management Review, 30(1), 11-24.

United Healthcare Group (2019). United Healthcare Group. https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/Walsh, W. (2017). Scheme Tied to UnitedHealth Overbilled Medicare for Years, Suit Says. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/business/dealbook/unitedhealthcare-improperly-took-money-from-medicare-suit-says.html