Management Seminar on Managed Health Care and Technology
Management Seminar on Managed Health Care and Technology
Of the approximately 260 million people currently living in the United States of America, every one of them has a need for effective, affordable and accessible health care coverage and services. Within the past thirty to forty years, the scope and cost of health care coverage and services has drastically changed, Altering the manner in which health care was previously managed.There are several factors that have affected the cost of healthcare coverage over the past two to three decades.One of these factors is the introduction and rapidly increasing enrollment by people in managed health care insurance plans. Managed health care insurance plans cans help to alleviate the rising costs of effective medical coverage. Another important factor that has affected health care costs is the invention and use of new medical technologies. As leading researchers and economic analysts have discovered there is a distinct and direct correlatin between advancing medical technologies and rising health care costs. Medical innovation has been proven time and again to be an important determation of health care cost . It would appear that managed care health insurance plans which attempt to lower health care costs, and highly expensive new medical innovations and procedures are at cross road pulling against one another in very different directions. Market-level studies have had found the cost growth of health care in markets with greater managed care access to be generally slower than that of non-managed care health insurance markets. However, managed care is unlikely to prevent the share of gross domestic product spent on healthcare from rising unless the cost-increasing nature of new medical technologies changes.Managed care health insurance plans differ greatly from indemnity fee-for-service, or FFS insurance plans. Since the early 1970's, rapidly growing enrollment in managed care health insurance plans has transformed the health insurance market in the United States. Virtually nonexistent in most markets three decades ago managed care health plans covered 63 percent of t he nation's employees by 1994. Managed care incorporates a range of features that allow the insurer greater influence in the process of medical care . Managed care plans aggressively bid for lower prices from physicians and hospitals in an attempt to minimize the use of health care services by monitoring providers and changing provider incentives. Health insurance providers...