The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is considered one of the most significant federal statutes in the American healthcare system. The reform was aimed to protect customers, lower the costs of healthcare, and improve its quality (Duggan et al., 2019). The main cause of this decision was a significant number of people in the US who remained without medical coverage. According to Keyes et al. (2020), one of the most desired outcomes of this healthcare reform was to reduce the number of acuity visits. In order to study the effects of the ACA implementation, the researchers collected data from a suburban community hospital in Michigan.
The study included collecting the statistics of hospital visits before and after the ACA implementation. It is necessary to mention certain environmental factors that influenced the effect of the ACA. Firstly, the social environment, namely, the patients’ age, defined to what extent different cohorts were affected by the reform. For example, people over 65 years old were least impacted by the ACA, since they remained under the Medicare coverage. Secondly, the hospital settings also played an important role, and the most significant increase was recorded in the emergency department. Finally, the rise in the number of visits depended on the number of newly insured patients (Keyes et al., 2020). Therefore, the age group, settings, and the previous insurance of patients can be considered the decisive factors of the changes.
It is necessary to understand that marketing could help the organization prepare for changes connected with the implementation of the ACA. First, the hospital could collaborate with insurance companies and other healthcare organizations to raise people’s awareness about the Act through advertising. Secondly, the hospital could introduce its own healthcare plan in accordance with the changes and present it via television or the internet. It can be suggested that the use of social media platforms could increase the success of the hospital. According to the study of Keyes et al. (2020), people under the age of 19 and adults were the most affected groups of the population. At the same time, these groups are considered the main users of social platforms, such as Facebook. The timely advertising in this social network could help the hospital spread information about the insurance-related changes, see the response of the public, and be prepared for the increase in emergency department visits.
References
Duggan, M., Gupta, A., & Jackson, E. (2019). The impact of the Affordable Care Act: Evidence from California’s hospital sector. National Tax Journal, (72)2, 261-322.
Keyes, D., Valiuddin, H., Mouzaihem, H., Stone, P., & Vidosh, J. (2020). The Affordable Care Act and emergency department use by low acuity patients in a US hospital. Health Services Management Research, 1-8. Web.