PROBLEM
Many patients have been faceing struggles due to the rise of health care costs around the country and health care industries declining patient reimbursement, which has been going on for several years now. Reimbursement is a “repayment for money you’ve already spent” (Thinkmap, Inc). Since health care industries are declining reimbursements, patients are receiving no or very little money back that they had spent on their hospital treatments. What this means is that hospitals want patients to start paying up front deductibles before their treatment, which can cost up to thousands of dollars. Doctors are starting to not give medical attention to patients until they prepay the cost for their treatments (Andrews). This is a problem because
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It has gotten worse about seven years ago since the Affordable Care Act has gained popularity (Holden). The Affordable Care Act was invented to be a solution to rising health care costs, but recently it has been making the problem become worse. The act was designed to lower the cost of health care and control relationships between patients and physicians in order to make sure the emergency departments were not being over used and patients could get their medical attention right away (Holden). Since the Affordable Care Act is making hospitals lose money, some researchers believe that hospitals are giving less reimbursement back to the patient because the hospitals are using that money to help them gain more money (Holden). The fact that patients are scared to get the treatment they need or completely ignore the fact that they need treatment, is because they won’t be able to afford it. The United States healthcare system is ranked 37th in the world (Fifer). This fact shows that there are definitely some things that need to be changed in order to have a better working system. Due to the more advanced medical treatment that is being produced, it is improving the quality of life, but it is also raising costs for