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Fraud and Abuse in the U.S. Health Care System
Evolution of medical malpractice
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Medical Malpractice Epidemic in America The world for the medical care field is one that has changed dramatically over the years so much so that medical errors have become the third leading cause of death in America. Unfortunately, this is not common knowledge to majority of the population stepping into a hospital today. This in itself is concerning because the amount of people who enter the hospital are generally sick, ill, or injured can sometime due to negligence of any other form of medical malpractice can become increasingly worse just by trusting their health care professionals. These doctors have the power to determine whether an individual live or dies, this is evident as thousands of people are killed by leaving there fate in the
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported in 1999 that between 44,000 and 98,000 people die each year in the United States due to a preventable medical error. A report written by the National Quality Forum (NQF) found that over a decade after the IOM report the prevalence of medical errors remains very high (2010). In fact a study done by the Hearst Corporation found that the number of deaths due to medical error and post surgical infections has increased since the IOM first highlighted the problem and recommended actions to reduce the number of events (Dyess, 2009).
Sicko, a film by Michael Moore was released in 2007. The film investigates health care system in the United States. One would definitely get amazed by the facts and figures explained in this documentary. The movie explains failing health care system in the United States. America has advance medical technology, big hospitals, and educated health care professionals, but these facilities are not universal. The film starts by talking about true American stories; what some people have experienced from current health care system, those who had and did not had health insurances. The story starts by Adam, one of 50 million people in America who does not have health insurance. Due to an accident Adam required a medical treatment, but for the reason of not having any insurance he puts stitches on his leg by himself. The second story was about Rick, who accidentally cut the top of his two fingers, middle and the ring while working on the table saw. As a result of not having health insurance, Rick could not put the top of his middle finger back because it was costing 60,000 dollars and he did not had the money. So, he decided to put his ring finger back because it cost 12,000 dollars which he could afford. The movie does not go into the detail of 50 million people who do not have health insurance, but it’s about 250 million Americans who do have health insurance.
Medical error occurs more than most people realize and when a doctor is found negligent the patient has the right to sue for compensation of their losses. Debates and issues arise when malpractice lawsuits are claimed. If a patient is filing for a medical malpractice case, the l...
An issue that is widely discussed and debated concerning the United States’ economy is our health care system. The health care system in the United States is not public, meaning that the states does not offer free or affordable health care service. In Canada, France and Great Britain, for example, the government funds health care through taxes. The United States, on the other hand, opted for another direction and passed the burden of health care spending on individual consumers as well as employers and insurers. In July 2006, the issue was transparency: should the American people know the price of the health care service they use and the results doctors and hospitals achieve? The Wall Street Journal article revealed that “U.S. hospitals, most of them nonprofit, charged un-insured patients prices that vastly exceeded those they charged their insured patients. Driving their un-insured patients into bankruptcy." (p. B1) The most expensive health care system in the world is that of America. I will talk about the health insurance in U.S., the health care in other countries, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and my solution to this problem.
MacDonald, Ilene. "Hospital Medical Errors Now the Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S." FierceHealthcare. N.p., 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
Milani, Oleck and Lavie reported that Medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the hospitals. About 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year from adverse effects from medication errors, 1 million annually die in
Explain the issue or dilemma using information from the readings in the book and other sources.
America is facing a healthcare crisis! In town hall meetings across America, brawls have broken out during speeches given in an attempt to promote government run healthcare. When looking at the big picture, healthcare is only a small portion of the current problems, but a very big one, in the eyes of Americans, considering how it affects every citizen. The healthcare system in the United States is experiencing hard times, but does that mean, we, as Americans, should just step aside and let government take over? Absolutely not! Government will claim that the numbers of uninsured Americans are high because of the prices insurance companies charge, but are these numbers correct and who makes up these numbers? What will a government run healthcare service provide as far as doctors and treatments are concerned? Where do we think the money to run government healthcare will come from? Americans can help turn the economy around by eliminating this healthcare crisis from the list of many. Americans should stop government from passing such a bill for government run healthcare, and let government know exactly what we need and how we need it done.
Firstly, every year there are many deaths associated with medical errors. Sarah Loughran writes, “An average of 195,000 people in the USA died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002…” (medicalnewstoday.com) and this was just in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with the numbers bouncing higher or lower each year; nevertheless, there seems to be no end in sight for errors in the medical field. There is a way to lower these numbers drastically. The way to do this is by leveling the doctor to nurse ratio in hospitals thereby eliminating the stress factors on most nurses whom often have several patients to attend by themselves but no help in doing so. While demand for nurses may be high, there also comes a breaking point for any human being, “…factors including the high acuity of patients, inadequate nurse to patient ratios, increased work demand, and decreased resources.” (American
What Seems To Be The Problem? A discussion of the current problems in the U.S. healthcare system.
Many hospitals have systems of checks and balances to avoid errors, but what happens when the systems do not work? Today in the United States, medical errors are the fifth-leading cause of death. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine released a study, “To Err is Human”, revealing an estimated 98,000 deaths annually from medical errors. While this figure is assumed to be lower than the actual, each death comes with an inherent cost to the health care system. In today’s terms this figure is underestimated, however the accompanied cost is estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion annually. According to Grober and Bohnen (2005), “Medical error can be defined as, “an act of omission or commission in planning or execution that contributes
Every year a citizen that is employed or non-employed suffers from not having proper healthcare coverage. In most developed nations they have universal coverage that covers their citizens and their families. Apparently here in the U.S, healthcare is a controversial problem for our economy and even a bigger problem funding these benefits for our citizens. Now the main question that citizens are asking is "If most developed nations have universal coverage, why doesn't the wealthiest nation which is the U.S have it?" (Ponnuru)This is an issue that no one but the government can let us know what's really going on at the moment, but results are always popping up as misguided quest or funds being lost. Healthcare needs to step up their game because time is really being wasted.
It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).
Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency coordination task force with the help of government agencies. These government agencies are responsible for making health pol-icies regarding patient safety to which every HCO must follow (Schulman & Kim, 2000).
The health care is extremely important to society because without health care it would not be possible for individuals to remain healthy. The health care administers care, treats, and diagnoses millions of individual’s everyday from newborn to fatal illness patients. The health care consists of hospitals, outpatient care, doctors, employees, and nurses. Within the health care there are always changes occurring because of advance technology and without advance technology the health care would not be as successful as it is today. Technology has played a big role in the health care and will continue in the coming years with new methods and procedures of diagnosis and treatment to help safe lives of the American people. However, with plenty of advance technology the health care still manages to make an excessive amount of medical errors. Health care organizations face many issues and these issues have a negative impact on the health care system. There are different ways medical errors can occur within the health care. Medical errors are mistakes that are made by health care providers with no intention of harming patients. These errors rang from communication error, surgical error, manufacture error, diagnostic error, and wrong medication error. There are hundreds of thousands of patients that die every year due to medical error. With medical errors on the rise it has caused the United States to be the third leading cause of death. (Allen.M, 2013) Throughout the United States there are many issues the he...