Healthcare is one of the significant issues in the world, and in recent years, healthcare spending has significantly increased. However, improving healthcare quality and reducing costs are two incompatible tasks, making the situation difficult for governments, organizations, and individuals. This essay will discuss what can be done structurally and individually to help cut healthcare costs.
Structural Level
Structural changes are one of the key aspects that can be considered to reduce healthcare expenses. This could be achieved by introducing greater competition between healthcare providers and increasing the availability of preventive care. This would lead to a greater focus on prevention and overall better health outcomes, which could help reduce the cost of care. In addition, information technologies can be used to automate medical care processes, reducing manual labor costs (Shi and Singh 275). For example, in some countries, electronic medical records systems are implemented, allowing doctors to quickly access the patient’s medical history, improving the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment, saving time, and reducing paperwork costs.
Individual Level
The second aspect that can be looked at is individual changes people can make to help reduce healthcare costs. Firstly, people can focus on disease prevention to avoid treatment costs. For this, a healthy lifestyle needs to be followed, a balanced diet needs to be maintained, an active lifestyle needs to be led, and regular medical checkups need to be done. This will help in detecting diseases at an early stage and preventing them from developing. Secondly, people can reduce their healthcare expenses by choosing optimal treatment options and medical services. Early diagnosis allows diseases to be detected at early stages when treatment can be more effective and cheaper (Shi and Singh 332). For example, early diagnosis of cancer can avoid expensive and long-term treatment at the late stages of the disease.
Conclusion
Overall, to reduce healthcare costs, both structural and individual measures need to be taken. Governments and organizations should optimize their operations, introduce new technologies, and improve healthcare management. Individuals, on the other hand, can lead a healthy lifestyle, undergo regular medical checkups, choose optimal treatment options, and use insurance. All these measures will help reduce healthcare costs and improve healthcare quality overall.
Work Cited
Shi, Leiyu, and Douglas A. Singh. Delivering Health Care in America: A Systems Approach. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2022.