Healthcare Costs and Healthcare

¶ … Healthcare Costs

A number of factors have affected the costs of healthcare in the United States over the past 3 decades, and there has been a corresponding impact on the nursing field as a result. To determine the facts about these issues, this paper reviews the literature to identify those factors that have had an effect on increasing healthcare costs over the past 30 years following by an analysis concerning how nursing has been impacted by efforts to contain costs. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning factors affecting healthcare costs and their impact on the nursing field are presented in the conclusion.

Factors Affecting Healthcare Costs in Past 30 Years

Although the $2.8 trillion healthcare industry in the United States has become more efficient over the past 30 years, there have been some forces at work that have continued to drive increases in the costs of the provision of healthcare services as well (Medical cost trends, 2014). One of the overarching causes of increases in healthcare costs during the past 30 years for those with healthcare insurance has been the number of uninsured healthcare consumers because the costs for the latter are borne in part by the former (The facts about rising healthcare costs, 2016). A number of other trends in particular have also served to increase healthcare costs since 1986, including the introduction of higher-cost specialty drugs and massive investments in healthcare information technology systems (Medical cost trends, 2014). The effects of these two trends has become especially pronounced over the past few years, but continuing innovations in healthcare technologies are expected to reduce the costs of this trend in the foreseeable future (Medical cost trends, 2014).

In addition, the introduction of high-deductible healthcare plans following the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010 has also driven up national healthcare expenditures (Medical cost trends, 2014). While the rate of increase in healthcare costs has slowed from 9.5% in 2002 to 3.9% in 2020, the rate of increase remains higher than the general inflation rate (The facts about rising healthcare costs, 2016). Finally, the costs of prescription drugs have increased just 1.2% since 2009 while the costs for physicians increased by 4.9% during this period (The facts about rising healthcare costs, 2016).

How Nursing has been Affected by Efforts to Contain Costs

Since 1986, there have been misguided efforts to reduce the number of registered nurses per patient in an effort to curb increases in healthcare costs (Schreuders & Bremner, 2012). These efforts have translated into heavier patient workloads for nurses with a corresponding increase in unplanned turnover rates and diminished quality of patient care and safety (Schreuders & Bremner, 2012). As a result, there has been a growing shortage of nurses in recent years, reaching epidemic proportions in some jurisdictions (Fischer, 2016). Although the educational funding provisions of the PPACA that provide greater access to loans for nursing students are expected to help reduce the shortage of nurses in the future, the problem remains significant today (Fischer, 2016).