Patient Care And Ability To Pay

Abstract

In most developing countries, the healthcare expenses come out the pocket of the individual. Due to this, and with the rising costs of healthcare, the patient’s ability to pay has become a critical issue in the developing countries. Various research has shown that increasing health care costs affect the patient’s ability to pay along with the fact that when patients are required to pay higher amounts for healthcare, they are less likely to go for the medical treatment. Healthcare costs are increasing at an annual rate of 7% due to increasing use of technology, along with a rise in the number of people that are medically insured. These increasing costs of healthcare are affecting various parties in the healthcare financial area. Many medical professionals claim that, with increasing use of technology comes progress in medicine. These sophisticated use of technology in Medicare is often expensive and beyond the reach of an average citizen. Such high out of pocket costs keep a patient from getting basic healthcare. The research aims at finding how the increasing costs of healthcare affect the patient’s ability to pay, and how the ability to pay for a treatment is related to their willingness to pay. The research also aims at focusing the relation of technology and the change in healthcare costs due to increasing use of technology, which in turn affects an average citizen’s ability to pay for patient care. Healthcare providers need to consider how increasing out of pocket costs can affect the utilization of patient treatment, how denial of medical help can influence overall health of a person, and the role healthcare organizations should play in reduction financial pressures over a patient while accessing medical treatments.

Keywords: ability to pay, willingness to pay, Healthcare costs, rising healthcare costs, utilization of healthcare.