A strange Forbes writing of their article - as if having more patients paid for through Medicaid and insurance policies makes more expense problems. Perhaps the money they're getting from more patients doesn't cover the cost plus profit? ... but that's Forbes usual slant, maybe looking to fool readers with low reading ability. Obamacare creates demand for more jobs:
"As the second year of medical coverage under the Affordable Care Act fattens hospital bottom lines, these facilities’ are beginning to see higher labor costs from the expense of hiring nurses to treat newly insured sick patients.
A window into this trend opened this week at the nation’s largest hospital company, HCA Holdings HCA +1.58% (HCA), which said increased patient volume from the health law and an improved economy forced its hospitals to hire more nurses from “contract labor” firms given the need for hundreds of these health professionals at its more than 100 hospitals across the country."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2015/10/31/as-obamacare-demands-more-nurses-hospital-labor-costs-soar/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix
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Medical costs will drop as patients are seen, advised, and treated for the preliminary steps to diabetes 2, cancer, and other diseases before they become expensive. This is a change from waiting til a patient is so bad that they need expensive treatment before death. It will need to be seen if giving good medical advice and drugs to prevent disease overcomes family eating habits from bribing children to like their parent by giving them a lifelong habit of sugar and starch. Waiting til someone complains, scheduling expensive referrals (fee-for-service) for CYA procedures that might not be necessary, then giving them drugs to take away the pain for a while til it gets worse, instead of preventing further degeneration, is the downside of previous and present medical practice.
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Who knows ... closing Planned Parenthood, because, like all doctors who don't have radiology breast scan machines in every office, they refer patients to radiology clinics instead of doing manual testing in every office, might be a trend for the medical industry.
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"Escalating the shift away from fee-for-service medicine, the nation’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans say they are now spending more than $145 billion annually – more than one-third of the medical claim dollars they pay – on “value-based” care that rewards better outcomes to keep patients healthy.
The number from the nation’s 36 Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, including Anthem WLP +% (ANTM), is only expected to grow as the nation’s private and government insurers move away from the traditional fee-for-service approach that can lead to overtreatment and unnecessary medical tests and procedures. The $145 billion in annual value-based payments from July 1, 2014 through June 30 of this year is more than double what Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans spent in the prior year.
“Our programs emphasize prevention, wellness, disease management and better coordinated care while reducing costly duplication and waste in care delivery,” Dr. Trent Haywood, chief medical officer of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which is the lobby and trade group for Blue Cross plans, said.
The Blue Cross association is hoping to bring even more value-based care programs across the country to national multi-state employers via a new network known as “Blue Distinction Total Care.”
The idea behind “Blue Distinction” would be for Blues plans that previously could only offer value-based programs in the states they operate in to shift more of a national employer’s workers from fee-for-service arrangements that existed outside of the insurer’s markets thanks to a larger provider network. Blue Distinction Total Care can reach 13 million Blue Cross and Blue Shield members via 118,000 medical professionals including more than 59,000 primary care physicians.
Value-based programs include “pay for performance programs,” “episode-based payment programs,” “patient-centered medical homes” as well as so-called accountable care organizations (ACOs), a rapidly emerging healthcare delivery system that rewards doctors and hospitals for working together to improve quality and rein in costs."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2015/10/27/blue-cross-move-from-fee-for-service-medicine-doubles-to-145-billion/