The Yin and Yang of Patient Empowerment in Healthcare

The forces of patient empowerment which pervade the current healthcare reform movement are counterbalanced by yin-yang forces of healthcare-provider quality-of-care accountability. The Two forces are increasing in momentum and possess significant implications for patients and healthcare providers.

Within the patient finish in the healthcare continuum, the forces of patient empowerment are increasingly being propelled with the concepts of patient engagement and patient-centered care, which are predicated round the premise the greater focus on the patient and greater participation in the patient inside the healthcare process will improve healthcare quality minimizing costs.

Patient-centered care is founded on the thought of patients rating and knowing their healthcare providers using the quality of healthcare delivered, how care was delivered and treatment outcomes. Patient satisfaction data are generated according to the patient’s perceived company’s provider/patient relationship, physician empathy, communication and connecting. The Person-Centered-Care Home is one-of-care spinoff within the patient-centered-care concept, which emphasizes coordination and communication of healthcare between doctors and specialists, to be able to transform primary care into “what patients wish it to be.”

Central to the thought of patient-centered care as well as the Patient-Centered-Care- Homecare model is the thought of shared decision-making, that’s a process through which patients and healthcare providers collaborate in purchasing a specific treatment modality when there are many options. Furthermore to weighing medical evidence, the selection process also views patient values and preferences.

Within the healthcare-provider finish in the healthcare continuum are forces that have a inclination to carry in check the forces which propel patient empowerment. Individuals forces make certain that patient-empowerment forces don’t run amok which patients receive reasonable, quality and safe healthcare.

Standards of healthcare established by evidence-based-medicine guidelines, condition medical boards, hospital-quality-assurance committees, insurance-company-quality-assurance committees, as well as the courts would be the well-established entities overseeing the delivery of reasonable, quality and safe healthcare by healthcare providers.

Some newer entities which regulate physician quality-of-care accountability, which are offshoots of healthcare reform, are the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), value-based modifiers and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

The Physician-Quality-Reporting System will impose reimbursement penalties on physician groups of 100 or maybe more that don’t meet certain quality-of-care-measures for Medicare patients beginning in 2015, and may impose penalties on all doctors treating Medicare and Condition state medicaid programs programs patients while not meeting the standards beginning in 2017.

Value-based modifiers are people of the Medicare-and-Condition state medicaid programs programs reimbursement structure which will impose additional reimbursement reductions in cost for doctors not meeting quality standards, based on calculated quality scores. Again, penalties for physicians in groups of 100 or maybe more will begin in 2015 and may affect all doctors treating Medicare-and-Condition state medicaid programs programs patients beginning in 2017.