Health Care Program Pros And Cons

Definition of the Problem Health care for children begins during pregnancy. Provider education to the expectant mother on health promoting and risk reducing behaviors is crucial to the health of a newborn and to the maturing child. Public maternal and child health programs, provide opportunities that address the needs of this vulnerable patient population.

By providing education to the community, the importance of health care and prevention can be stressed to the public. The primary purpose of a maternal and child health program, is to offer education and available resources to the mother and unborn child or already been born child. There are many things that can affect the health of a child and the mothers need to be aware of the effects

Benefits to belonging to Medicaid include health care coverage to low income families that would otherwise not have access to the appropriate preventive care and specialty care needed (MedicaidPatients (n.d.)). For practitioners, it is a guaranteed reimbursement from the government therefore encouraging a regular flow of patients to care for and included an incentive for caring for Medicaid patients (MedicaidPatients (n.d.)). The greatest benefit however is the coverage to children whose families fall below the income levels to be able to otherwise afford insurance. The drawbacks to Medicaid are even though insurance is provided to low income households it does not mean that every procedure will be paid for. If a procedure is thought to be unnecessary then the claim can be rejected and can be rejected even after the treatment has occurred (MedicaidPatients (n.d.)). Physicians generally receive a lower reimbursement from the government for patients covered by Medicaid which can cause a hesitation in accepting a new patient based on Medicaid coverage (MedicaidPatients (n.d.)). With the ACA enactment, the insured patient population increased and therefore the demand for primary care physicians increased causing a

Mother is concerned that the patient continues to have pain and is continuing to have a fever. When the mother was asked, how long has the child been receiving the antibiotics previously prescribed, she responds “Oh, well I can’t afford them, so I haven’t gotten them.” Mind you several local pharmacies in the community provide these antibiotics for free and several others charge only $4 for generics. Looking at her it was noticed that in her purse she had two unopened packs of cigarettes and one opened pack sitting in it. As the advocate for the child, it was brought to the mother’s attention that instead of buying the almost $5 per pack of cigarettes she could have taken the money and bought the $4 or even free prescription. She was then educated that an untreated ear infection can lead to hearing loss. According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology (n.d) untreated ear infections can cause a conductive hearing loss due to fluid filling the middle ear. Treatment of this type of hearing loss is tympanostomy tubes and drainage of the