Factors That Influence Healthcare Disparities In West Texas

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The purpose of this essay is to discuss three patient and health-system related factors that influence health care disparities within the West Texas region and how they are inter-related. The three patient related factors that influence healthcare disparities in West Texas are socioeconomic, health education, and health behavior. West Texas is home to 2.8 million people with 98 out of 108 counties being classified as rural (TTUHSC, n.d). Much of these 98 counties are populated by farmers and low-income people with Medicaid or Medicare. Access to healthcare is very limited and it is often to financially taxing to drive to one of the bigger cities for care. This leads to a disparity in health education. With 22 of the 98 counties being without …show more content…

In West Texas, Hispanics make up 35.9% of the population (2013). Much of this population is either bilingual or Spanish speaking only. The language barriers are a real challenge and will only increase as the Spanish speaking population increases. Clinics and hospitals across West Texas are not equipped with Spanish speaking providers. The addition of interpreters has helped relieve some of these barriers. As mentioned in the patient related factors, Medicare and Medicaid patients are wide-spread within the Texas panhandle. The reimbursement for treating these patients is insufficient (Fried & Fottler, 2015). In 2017, 26 million dollars was not reimbursed to the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School (TTUHSC) of Medicine in Lubbock (TTUHSC, 2017). While the payor mix consists of commercial and government payors, the demographics of West Texas leads to a large percentage with Medicare and Medicaid. Approximately 24.4% of patients are not even insured at all despite the efforts of the Affordable Care Act (2013). A final issue that creates additional health disparities is the lack of cultural competency amongst hospitals and clinics. For example, while the TTUHSC Lubbock employs faculty from a variety of backgrounds, the Hispanic faculty numbers are low. Considering West Texas has a substantial Hispanic population it would be

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