Implementation of Affordable Care Act
The implementation of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010 gave approximately 30 million more Americans access to affordable, medical care. In 2013 alone, 13 million Americans signed up for healthcare due to the PPACA (Schmittdiel et. al., 2017). This policy affects my career as a nurse because of significant increase in the number of patients we treat daily. However, the PPACA does not positively affect the quality of care we provide to our patients, but it increases the quantity of patients we care daily.NURS 6150 Week 7 Essay Discussion
The healthcare driver that The PPACA was designed to address was a combination of cost and accessibility. As stated previously, the PPACA was developed to give healthcare access to millions of uninsured Americans at an affordable price. Yes, the PPACA is achieving its intended goals. The American Journal of Public Health reported that the rate of American’s who could not afford their prescriptions dropped from 8.3% to 5% in 2015 (Kennedy & Wood, 2016). The percentage of individuals who had a primary care provider increased from 59% to 73% and the percentage of patients who delayed seeking medical care due to the cost decreased from 37% to 25% (Schmittdiel et. al., 2017). To summarize, the implementation of the PPACA increased the probability of patients filling their prescriptions, provided access to quality, primary care providers, and increased the likelihood of patients seeking medical treatment in a timely manner by offering affordable medical plans. As a result, massive rise in hospital census has caused another issue of safe staffing, is the healthcare issue that I would like to address.