Access to healthcare is the ability for individuals to equally obtain and use quality healthcare services to attain the best medical outcomes. A large percentage of the population lacks access to healthcare services because of certain barriers that prevent or limit their access even to the most essential and critical healthcare services and this increases the risk of poor health outcomes among the affected population. Access to healthcare is comprised of four main elements which include coverage, services, timelessness and workforce. Coverage facilitates the entry into the healthcare systems and this means that individuals who are uninsured are less likely to receive efficient medical care hence can end up with poor health outcomes. Healthcare services is part of access to health whereby adults are recommended extra services such as screening and prevention services as part of the usual healthcare plan. Access should be timeless as healthcare professionals should be in a position to provide healthcare services when needed and it should as well have adequate workforce of professionals who are qualified and culturally competent in their process of providing healthcare services (Homer et al., 2018).
Quality healthcare has been determined as a fundamental right to every individual by the United Nations. The United States’ approach to the issue of healthcare access involves its efforts to ensure that all individuals from children to adults can easily access quality healthcare services at affordable prices. This has resulted in the efforts to fund health insurance programs for all citizens by expanding Medicare programs to more states as a way of attaining more beneficiaries to enable a large percentage of the population to access healthcare services. The government as well has put more efforts in stabilizing the individual insurance market places to encourage a stronger market place for health insurance companies so that low and moderate income earning patients can equally access and secure affordable medical insurance coverage. This measure is attained through the government’s efforts to support expanding eligibility for up to 500% premium tax credits of the federal poverty level. It has as well encouraged state innovation to maximize the number of individual coverage and it has continued to offer its support to the establishment of permanent reinsurance programs. The government has put in more efforts to ensure the availability of accessible healthcare services through its efforts to ensure that a large population attains health insurance cover to ensure that the services are readily available to individuals at affordable prices. The availability of healthcare access is as well attained through the efficient supply of health workers and appropriate stock in the healthcare facilities with a workforce that has attained adequate competencies and skills to match the needs of the general population. The government continues to put in more efforts to endure accessibility of healthcare services by enhancing equal distribution of healthcare workers while taking into account the demographic, rural-urban mix, the composition and the under-served regions and populations to ensure that it increase the levels of accessibility to healthcare services. Access to healthcare in that healthcare organizations services should be appropriate in that healthcare organizations should be effective enough to attain the trust of their patients, Providers should as well practice effective communication skills to engage well with patients as a way of ensuring that patients attain appropriate care. Affordability is an essential aspect in access to healthcare services as it ensures that individuals from all kinds of background can access and utilize healthcare services because if the pocket-friendly prices associated with the services. Most people cannot access healthcare services because they are not affordable as a large percentage of healthcare providers have initiated high prices and those without insurance cover can hardly access such services. Access should be accommodative to a wide spectrum of the population meaning that it must be gender diverse and eliminate the physical, mental and social health disparities to benefit the entire population. Access is a fundamental human right as it prevents diseases and disabilities, helps the population to manage health conditions and it people are able to treat severe illnesses through access to healthcare services. Moreover, it has a direct impact on the social determinants of health which include safe housing, transportation and neighborhoods, discrimination, racism and violence (Alegría et al., 2018). This means that the mentioned factors have positive contributions to the access of medical services.
When certain communities are deprived of services, their health outcomes are severely impacted. A public policy in health can be defined as a set of regulations that laws that define the actions and decisions to be applied on the society to enhance the wellness of the community based on the developed healthcare goals. The policies can range from the drafting of formal legislation and community reach efforts that impact the development of community health. One example of the public health policies adapted in the United States is the Medicaid policy whose expansion was proposed through the inclusion of Affordable Care Act. Access should be transitional in that the government should work on ensuring that all communities can have access to healthcare services through a policy that encourages transitional medical services to accommodate more populations, especially the diverse populations. It is the only way that can be used to attain equality in access to healthcare services as the current situation involves populations that can hardly access healthcare services because of poor infrastructure. Without this policy, minority groups would continue to experience adverse and severely impacted healthcare outcomes.
Effective policymaking and its implementation become a core responsibility that needs to be taken into consideration. The development of suitable public policies that can help in improving the equity in services is often dependent on the healthcare infrastructure. Prioritization of healthcare equity is often contrasted with the need for infrastructural developments and reservation of services for improved access to vulnerable groups. In the case of Medicaid expansion and application in the USA, several arguments that promote and limit its application are also posed. When an individual is not on Medicaid, they may not be able to get the required services and treatment.
Opinion and Conclusion
An evidence-based approach has been used to outline the benefits of public policy in improving access to healthcare with arguments ad propositions. In my opinion, the use of public policy and implementation of welfare infrastructures is essential to close the gap between the communities and his would enable individuals from all kinds of backgrounds to be in a position of accessing healthcare services. This will help in reducing the disparity and make healthcare more accessible to all individuals (Iimi & Rajoela, 2018). Through this, health equity can be achieved, and the wellbeing of the community can be versioned with quality healthcare access to all individuals. Effective infrastructure development integrates healthcare organizations as the center for inpatient and acute care as patients from all backgrounds can get the opportunity to be integrated in the broader healthcare system. Effective infrastructure enhances quality patient experience as individuals can access healthcare services that are efficient, timely, safe and sustainable. Populations from rural areas face challenges in accessing healthcare services because of poor infrastructure hence improvement can leverage the level of healthcare access for individuals in both rural and urban centers. Most people that originate from rural areas experience high poverty levels and poor transport connectivity hence healthcare policies that can address the improvement of road infrastructure can enable the population to experience better health outcomes (Pu et al., 2020). Access to healthcare services can be limited by lack of connectivity in that poor living conditions and poor road networks hinders sustainability in the medical supply chain within the rural areas. It is therefore obvious to mention that peoples’ ability to access healthcare services can not only be impacted by the local poor road networks but also lack of connectivity and this results in inequalities when it comes to accessing healthcare services. Moreover, poor infrastructure limits people demand for healthcare services in rural areas and the lower the demand the higher the levels of limited access to healthcare services.
References
Alegría, M., NeMoyer, A., Falgàs Bagué, I., Wang, Y., & Alvarez, K. (2018). Social determinants of mental health: where we are and where we need to go. Current psychiatry reports, 20(11), 1-13.
Homer, C. S., Castro Lopes, S., Nove, A., Michel-Schuldt, M., McConville, F., Moyo, N. T., … & ten Hoope-Bender, P. (2018). Barriers to and strategies for addressing the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of the sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health workforce: addressing the post-2015 agenda. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 18(1), 1-11.
Iimi, A., & Rajoela, V. H. (2018). Transport connectivity, Medical supplies, and people’s health care access: evidence from Madagascar. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, (8487).
Pu, Q., Yoo, E. H., Rothstein, D. H., Cairo, S., & Malemo, L. (2020). Improving the spatial accessibility of healthcare in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Applied Geography, 121, 102262.
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