Improving the Healthcare System of the United States
Experienced entrepreneur Christian Fletcher serves as the CEO of LifeBrite Laboratories, a medical laboratory based in Atlanta, Georgia. LifeBrite Laboratories provides comprehensive services that deliver data to clinicians to help with the effective diagnosis and treatment of patients. In an interview with Authority Magazine, Christian Fletcher explained why the healthcare systems in the United States lag behind high-income nations and shared what he thinks can be done to fix the problems.
First, the US healthcare system needs a body or agency that will direct and provide oversight of commercial insurance payers. It can be observed that insurance premiums and patients’ out-of-pocket expenses keep on increasing, but rarely do healthcare providers benefit out of these increases. With a tighter oversight, independent providers have more leeway to make contract negotiations and participate in networking.
Second, many great minds in the healthcare industry are pursuing other professions because of increasing medical school costs and decreasing salaries. Many students are shying away from expensive medical degrees. According to estimates, 75 percent of medical school graduates in 2018 carry an average educational debt of over $196,000. This problem may be solved by incentivizing top talents by forgiving their student debts to allow them to pursue their careers in medicine.
Third, patients are caught in the middle of the conflict between physicians (healthcare providers) and insurance providers (payers). Physicians look to generate encounters with patients to increase financial viability while insurance providers are hoping physicians will have decreased patient encounters to increase their own profitability. The solution is a value-based care. Physicians should be incentivized when their patients get better faster because of quality service. The healthcare system should also implement transparency in reimbursement for the benefit of all stakeholders.
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Originally published at http://christianfletchersite.wordpress.com on October 22, 2020.
