DDHA 8600 Diss Week 3 Part 2
Post an explanation of how employers and healthcare providers influence healthcare expenditures and the impact on population health.
Discussion 2A
Preventive Care
A major way employer can influence healthcare expenditures and impact population
health is by offering their employees incentives to be healthy. For example, at my Health System
there are ways to earn discounts for completing annual checks, biometrics, and doing weight loss
programs. These incentives drive the overall costs of healthcare expenditures by ensuring
employees are staying healthy and reducing the urge to utilize urgent cares and emergency
rooms. Employers can further encourage preventive care by offering in-house vaccinations and
granting employees paid time off for medical appointments (Fronstin & Roebuck, 2017). Aside
from cost concerns, employees might put off doctor's visits for fear of missing work. Allowing
this flexibility lets them focus on their wellness and work, as noted by one study, individuals at
high health risk who participated in a financially incentivized biometric assessment program
improved their health indices over time (Fu et al., 2016).
High-Deductible plans and HSAs
High-deductible plans often incentivize employees to carefully consider their medical
expenses and make sure they're getting their money's worth. Despite having lower monthly
premiums, these plans require meeting a higher deductible before expenses are covered.
Employers can help ease the deductible burden by encouraging employees to use Health Savings
Accounts (HSAs) in conjunction with high-deductible plans. Employers looking to drive more
workers to sign up for HSA-eligible health plans, one of the biggest financial incentives they can
offer is to reduce or even eliminate the annual premiums. (Einav et al., 2018).
References
Einav, L., Lee, S., & Levin, J. (2018). The impact of financial incentives on health and health
care: Evidence from a large wellness program. Health Economics, 28(2), 261-279
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3840
Fronstin, P., & Roebuck, C. (2017). The Impact of Offering Free Coverage on Enrollment Choice
and Risk Selection in an HSA-eligible Health Plan. Social Science Research Network, 43(4)
Retrieved 18 June 2020, from.
Fu, P., Bradley, K., Viswanathan, S., Chan, J., & Stampfer, M. (2016). Trends in Biometric
Health Indices Within an Employer-Sponsored Wellness Program With Outcome-Based
Incentives. American Journal Of Health Promotion, 30(6), 453-457.
Post an explanation of how the government influences healthcare expenditures and the impact on population health.
The government ideology and other political factors influence country-level public healthcare expenditures, focussing on the impact of the Great Recession on that relationship. We test this hypothesis for the OECD countries in 1970-2016. 0ur results reveal the presence of a partisan effect, left-wing governments being more likely to raise public expenditures in the health sector. We also find that coalitions increase these expenditures, whilst minority governments and those with a high presence in the lower house decrease them. Meanwhile, the opportunistic behaviour of incumbents related to the timing of elections is not supported by our results. The percentage of public expenditures over total health expenditures is also examined, obtaining similar results regarding the partisan effect. However, the onset