Financial Challenges in Each of the Healthcare Environments

Health Care Financial Challenges
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Health Care Financial Challenges
a. Financial Challenges in Each of the Healthcare Environments
a.1. Hospitals
* It is not easy to maintain financial flexibility because of the continuous rise in the aging population and technological advancements,
* The trend of outpatient care has grown in recent years, leading to a situation where hospitals have to invest a large number of financial resources in acquiring outpatient facilities – a situation that can create a budget deficit for the hospital in short-term,
* There is a rise in hospitals costs because of the higher demands in terms of staff salaries, and it is challenging to procure supplies cost-effectively,
* Insurance reimbursements are another financial challenge, especially in the scenario where there is an upward trend in healthcare spending and continuous pressures from patients, insurers, and governments for a reduction in hospital spending (Florida Tech, 2021).
a.2. Ambulatory Care
* In the perspective of ambulatory care, the first challenge is the uncertain volume of distribution, the volumes of cases have risen by 200% in the COVID-19; however, the percentage of the emergency cases have fallen, leading to the uncertain situation to predict the demand for staff and supplies,
* Ambulatory care limits the clinic staff's capabilities to provide personalized patient care, leading to high costs to examine the consumers' data, unified patient data, and non-clinical histories – a situation worth avoiding to minimize costs (Singh, 2021).
a.3. Home Health Care
* Continuous rise in the costs because agencies have to continuously evaluate the operational activities to ensure sustainability, especially after the payment reform of patient-driven grouping models in the healthcare,
* There is a continuous increase in LUPA (Low Utilization Payment Adjustments) option in the current pandemic era – a situation that high revenue losses for the health care agencies (Mancini, 2020).
a.4. Long-Term Care
* Higher aging population increases the health agencies costs, such as; according to an estimate, about 70% of the individuals above the age of 60 will require some long-term care in their lifetime,
* Another estimate suggests that there will be a shortage of the trained, skilled staff members for long-term care by 30%, leading to a situation where health agencies have to pay higher for employees with high skills and professional experience (Ebrary, 2021).
a.5. Integrated Delivery Systems (IDS)
* The IDS raises concerns related to the structural insurance program development, leading to a scenario where hea...