Could Medicare Advantage Plan helps tackles escalating Healthcare Costs ?

Healthcare costs are a burden

The proposed reforms in healthcare have been provided. Insurance costs for healthcare are a burden on individuals, businesses, and taxpayers. Amongst all these, the highest burden is on the taxpayers because government is the biggest buyer of healthcare services. Several questions are being raised on the period that the government will be able to meet the Medicare and Medicaid expenses. These costs are escalating and consume a substantial amount of the country’s gross domestic product.

Present payment systems boost overuse

The present system provides payment to the healthcare service agencies based on the quantity of work that is done by them. This encourages these service providers to concentrate on the amount of work done instead of the quality of the work done. The focus needs to be modified and healthcare service providers must be rewarded for prevention of sickness and the quality of services provider.

Modifying the attitude

It is important for individuals to pay attention to their health and creating awareness among the population. Therefore, huge savings in healthcare costs can be made by encouraging people to live a healthier lifestyle. It is common that often patients undergo tests even when they are not required only for their personal satisfaction. The present payment system also is rewarding for undergoing these tests. Therefore, concentrated efforts to modify the attitude of the citizens are important.

End-of-life care services approach

Almost, 25% of the Medicare costs are incurred to treat patients during the last six months of their lives. Although, it is necessary to incur the expenses to provide a longer life to the patients, the stage of the disease must be considered. There has been great debates of no actual benefits in incurring huge expenses to provide a few months more to live for a patient who is in the last stage of a critical disease. The primary reason for this is the payment system that awards for quantity instead of quality of services.

Preserving the amounts

Because a huge amount is incurred to treat patients in their last stages, the amounts left for treating other patients are very small. As the number of senior citizens increase, lesser number of healthcare services is available for these individuals. Therefore, it is important to save costs to meet the demands of the aging population. The Medicare Advantage plan is an excellent method to achieve this. Under this plan, healthcare service providers are rewarded to keep individuals healthy by prevention, care coordination, creating awareness, and managing the diseases.