Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is one of the most influential reforms in the sphere of medicine within the last decades. It was amended by the Health and Education Reconciliation Act and turned into a law in March 2010. The major broad objectives of the ACA was to secure access to care to all American citizens, contribute to improving of health outcomes and certainly to reduction of healthcare costs across the board. All these goals are so closely connected to each other that overall success of this policy is related to success of all three. Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act
The ACA demands specified employer-sponsored group health plans for provision of preventive care and screenings for women. Congress took the decision to delegate the responsibility for promulgating regulations for implementation of provision of the ACA to the Executive Branch. “The case arose after the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), proposed regulations which exempted religious organizations but not for-profit businesses.” (Hobson, 2014, p. 3).
The role of stakeholders, namely of the patients, should also not be underestimated. Thus there is a need to introduce such patient engagement strategies, which would provide opportunities for education of the patients regarding all aspects and points of the care continuum. Both primary and alternative care providers are to consider such operating models, which would help to change the patient hours in order to make access to care for population better. In this way patients would be supported to make smarter and quicker decisions, which would be efficient for their wallets and would have positive results for their health and consequently for the overall success of the reform. This is the only way for the ACA to succeed and reach the set aims, when the health outcomes are better for less money spent.Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act