How Healthcare Reform Will Affect Healthcare Quality & Delivery

Quality and the Delivery System Should Improve With Healthcare Reform

• The new bill will reduce preventable readmissions, due to a lack of quality care. Within 1 month of discharge, 20% of Medicare patients are readmitted to the hospital. In Florida, that translates to 167,000 readmissions yearly. More focus on primary care and financial incentives for hospitals to do better with arranging follow-up care at discharge time will help to lower readmission rates.
  
  
• Paperwork will diminish. Presently, doctors use up 140 hours yearly and $69,000 in resources dealing with health insurance paperwork and bureaucracy. In Florida, there are 58,565 doctors, which means 8.2 million hours of paperwork and $3.9 billion in resources. The simplification of the process means physicians can spend more time on their patients.
  
  
• There would be incentives for doctors to practice primary care. A 5 to 10% pay raise would be in effect for the 21,700 Florida doctors in that field.
  
  
• This would encourage the growth of the primary health care field. There are 2.8 million (15%) of Floridians without access to a primary care doctor. Programs with the new bill would help grow programs in rural areas and those with doctor shortages.