...physicians and their patients in rural areas are confronted with barriers that are so much more diverse than those in the cities. Rural residents are challenged to deal with distinctive mixture of factors that lead to disparities in health care not found in cities. Financial constraints, type of health care coverage, lack of health care providers and quality of care, transportation difficulties, existing health problems, and complete isolation of living in remote rural areas all act together to hinder rural residents in their struggle to live healthier lifestyles. The purpose of this essay is to present the categories of health care barriers that may affect John Q.’s health care utilization, identify factors that are mutable or immutable, and some of the ways the mutable factors can be change. There are many factors that affect John’s health care utilization; one example is the disparity in incomes for rural residents that cause financial constraints. According to the National Rural Health Association, the average per capita income is $7,417 lower than in urban areas and the rural residents are more likely to live below the poverty level (2013). John Q. has a full-time job but his income is still not enough to allow him to shop around for a better health care coverage that meet his needs. John’s employers are less likely to provide health care coverage which is why he is relying on Medicaid. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Medicaid is a “government...
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...Health Care Utilization: Challenging yet Beneficial Heidi Dunn HCS/235 Version 3 May 14, 2014 Mrs. Glorinda Pastorius, RN, MSN, CCRN Health Care Utilization: Challenging yet Beneficial When considering different options for seeking healthcare there are several things to consider. Many people today have health problems that are classified as chronic. Often times, health insurance is un-obtainable because of how expensive it is and the income that most people make simply cannot cover the costs. In addition to this burden, other challenges must be overcome to utilize health care. So how do people find ways to take care of themselves? One option for lower income individuals is the utilization of Medicaid. Medicaid is a government funded health care program that offers coverage for people with lower incomes. Need John Q. is a patient that qualifies for Medicaid. This patient has a predisposing condition of chronic high blood pressure. In addition to this, there is a genetic factor present illustrating that heart problems run in his family. This enables him to receive care that may help prevent him from complications that arise from having high blood pressure. Recently, his father had a heart attack and this has John worried about his own well-being. He is afraid that he may experience the same thing. John is interested in taking preventative measures to avoid having a heart attack himself; however, there are a few obstacles that present challenges for him to utilize health...
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...Health Care Utilization HCS/235 July 22, 2012 Health Care Utilization According to Andersen (1995) there are three main factors that determine the utilization of health care. Andersen created a model that states predisposing factors, enabling, and need for medical treatment determine if a person will use the medical that is available to them. These factors are grouped into two categories, mutable and immutable. If a factor is considered immutable it cannot be changed. Mutable factors are generally unchangeable only on a temporary basis and can only be changed if effort is out fourth by the one in need. Additionally, Rosenstock and Becker’s health belief model reveals people will seek out medical care if they perceive themselves to be susceptible to health problems, believe their health problem is serious, believe treatment or prevention is cost effective and worth the time, and are able to seek out health care service (1995) influence one’s decision to utilize health care. In the case of John Q, he is a male who lives in a rural area. Although he works fulltime he is in the low income range and qualifies for government insurance through Medicaid. In this scenario, John suffers from high blood pressure and has a family history of poor heart conditions. While seeking a primary care physician John discovers the closest physician that accepts Medicaid is 40 minutes away. John relies on public transportation or carpooling with a friend to commute. With John’s family medical...
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...physician who accepts Medicaid is a 40-minute drive and appointments must be made 2 weeks in advance due to the number of patients at the practice. In addition, the practice does not offer weekend or evening hours. John usually catches a ride to work with a friend or relies on public transportation. (University of Phoenix, 2012). Based on the above scenario, John Q. needs to see a doctor to keep from becoming a victim of a heart attack. There are many factors involved with John Q. using health care services. He has a low income, receives Medicare, no local physician available, limited transportation, and yet he has a need to see a doctor. These factors are described as predisposing, enabling, need, mutable, or immutable. The immutable factors cannot be changed, whereas the mutable factors could change. How dose one change them is the question? This question is important because the changes need to be made so that everyone can have access to health care no matter what area they live in. One of the major factors affecting John Q’s access to health care that the only primary care physician that accepts Medicaid is approximately 40 miles away, and he depend on others or public transportation. John lives in a rural area. Based on Jones (2009), many rural areas do not have sufficient patient volume to support full-service hospitals. Rural areas contain 19% of the population in the United States, but only 11% of physicians...
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...Health Care Utilization Paper Wendy Witt HCS/235 8/13/2012 Delores Usea Healthcare Utilization Paper For many individuals acquiring and using a regular source of medical care is often influenced by many factors. Perceived and evaluated need, and potential access are connected with both predisposing (immutable) and enabling (mutable) factors. Predisposing factors determining the use of health services include demographics, age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, occupation, location, health and cultural beliefs. Immutable factors cannot be changes. Immutable factors are connected with mutable beliefs regarding health values, beliefs, and knowledge. Mutable factors are enabling factors that can be changed. Enabling factors consist of personal and community factors. For example, a personal factor would be an individual s income changed, or the individual gained health insurance or lost health insurance. Community factors include health services resources, health facilities, and transportation. Location has an effect on John’s ability to utilize health care because John recently has moved to a rural community and the nearest physician is 40 minutes away. Providing a healthcare facility within John’s community he would be able to utilize healthcare on a regular basis will help John to live a healthier longer life. Factors that may affect John’s utilization of health care include transportation. Transportation has a large impact on the ability for individuals who are...
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...a full time job. John is eligible for Medicaid due to his low income and needs to see a doctor since John has high blood pressure and recently his father had a heart attack. John has local doctors but none of them except Medicaid and the closest one he can find is a 40 minute drive away and needs the appointment to be made two weeks in advance. John doesn’t have a vehicle of his own and catches rides to work and relies on public transportation. I will be discussing what factors may affect John’s health care utilization, if the factors found are mutable or immutable and some ways to change the mutable factors. What factors may affect John’s health care utilization? The factors in John’s situation that may affect John’s health care utilization are his form of insurance, the area he lives in, facilities that accept his insurance, his health condition, his level of income, and transportation. Are any of these factors mutable or immutable? John could get another job to make more money or one that provides affordable health care coverage, but in this time, jobs are scarce and he is probably lucky to have job he is in. He could look for another form of insurance; there are low cost government programs that many facilities will accept, unlike Medicaid. These insurances are based on your income and will fit in your budget. John could also change his living situation and move closer to a facility that does accept Medicaid so he can be seen and not have to travel. Transportation is a big...
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...John Q’s Blues The business of health care insurance is more about making the most amount of money possible while making the patients believe that they are valued. Let’s not confuse value with importance because they are different. People are necessary for health care insurance companies to make money, but that does not mean that the health care providers care. This paper will illustrate the picture of a man John Q, who is suffering from high blood pressure and has Medicaid but is forced to deal with unreasonable circumstances. There is a steady decline of doctors who will accept new Medicaid patients. Location, location, location is the most important factor at this point. For example, new Medicaid patients would have an easier time getting accepted in Wyoming than in New Jersey (Galewitz, 2012). This produces a significant problem because new Medicaid patients who need vital medical attention or even preventive measures may not be able to get the care they need. The next option for these individuals would be to go to a free clinic. Even though in some cases this may be their only options, but this does not guarantee the patient will be seen or get the care that is needed. According to Andersen (1995), there are three important elements when looking at a health services utilization model: predisposing, enabling and need. Predisposing concerns makes the patient away ahead of time concerning the care that can be received. Enabling is the...
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...attack he would like to be checked out. Due to John’s low income he qualifies for Medicaid coverage, but also has work within his restraints. John lives in a rural community where there are local doctors however none accept Medicaid. The closest primary care physician who takes his insurance is a forty minute drive away. John also is without a car, he relies on a friend or public transportation. There are many mutable and un-mutable factors in this case. John could get a better job, which could result in better insurance coverage. “The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services states that one-quarter of America’s population lives in rural areas”(Jones, 2013). John Q lives in a rural area where his son has heart condition and is in need of a heart transplant and the closest primary care physicians is 40 miles away. John usually gets a ride to work from a friend or relies on public transportation. Due to that he is not able to take his son to seek medical treatment on time. This paper is about the factors of health care utilization and their mutable or immutable and also how they can change. The factors that can affect John’s health care utilization are that he cannot get to the proper physician because of having no transportation to the physicians as well as the physician’s...
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...seek health care and remain consistent as long as she lives. “In United States, men are more likely to be regular and heavy alcohol drinkers, heavier smokers who are less likely to quit, non-medical illicit drug users, and are more overweight compared to women. Men are less likely to utilize health care visits to doctor's offices, emergency departments (ED), and physician home visits than women. They are also less likely to make preventive care, hospice care, dental care visits, and have fewer hospital discharges and shorter hospital stays than women” (Pinkhasov, Wong, Kashanian, Lee, Samadi, Pinkhasov, and Shabsigh (2010). Therefore, these areas that deal with long-term care and preventive health care are elements that can be enabling or mutable factors. Drug use can, smoking habits can, and drinking...
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...affecting his health care utilization. He works full-time, but still qualifies for Medicaid because his income is low. He has high blood pressure and family history of heart attacks. He does not have a car or his own mean of transportation and the nearest clinic that accepts Medicaid is a 40-minute drive. He has to make an appointment two weeks in advance because of the amount of other people seeking services from the same provider. He may to find ways to schedule his appointments around his job hours and the practice hours, which does not offer weekend or evening hours John is fortunate to have a full-time job and still receives Medicaid services. He is in a situation in which he has to make some major decisions. His decisions or choices or mutable factors because he can make or change things to his own ability, even if it works out in his best interest, or if it does not work out for the best, he can be alter his choice if he needs if needed. There are different tasks John may try or attempt to succeed in his struggle of help for health care. One thing John may try is looking for other means of transportation to and from the doctor. He lives in a rural area and gets a ride to and from work with friends and coworkers; there are health care providers that provide transportation to and from doctors’ appointments, hospitals, and drugstores. This service is free of charge to most Medicaid and Medicare recipients as long as he or she is receiving services through Medicaid. John should...
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...providers nearby accept Medicaid. While there are local doctors, he discovered that the closest primary care physician who accepts Medicaid is a 40-minute drive and appointments must be made 2 weeks in advance due to the number of patients at the practice. In addition, the practice does not offer weekend or evening hours. John usually catches a ride to work with a friend or relies on public transportation. According to Chapter 4 of The U.S. Health System: Origins and Functions, Andersen (1995) developed a model of health services utilization based on three categories of factors: predisposing, enabling, and need. These factors can be further categorized as mutable or immutable. Address the following in your paper for Option B: What factors may affect John's health care utilization? Are these factors mutable or immutable? What are some ways...
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...changes in the environment as part of understanding the use of health care services. Although the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use was revised, the core factors that it was built on stayed the same. It is based on a function of predisposing, enabling, and need for health care. The predisposing factors are stronger in tendency for some individuals than in others. It is further subdivided into demographic factors including age, gender, and ethnicity; social factors- education, occupation, and residence mobility; health beliefs-attitude toward the medical care, doctors, and diseases. These factors are immutable, meaning they cannot be changed. Then, there are enabling factors, which consist of personal income, health insurance status, and welfare programs as well as community availability of health care facilities and transportation. The enabling factors are referred to as mutable, meaning they can be changed. The last factor is need....
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...CS201 Final Study Guide I. Basic Linux Commands a. cd – change directory b. mkdir – make directory c. ls – show contents of directory II. Variables in Python d. Variables do not need to be declared e. Must start with a letter or “_” i. can contain numbers f. **variable names are case sensitive! ii. Use camel case: 1. newValue 2. studentAverage 3. setAverageGrade g. Initializing a variable: iii. 3 2 1 iv. variable = value h. Order of Operations: v. HIGHEST PRIORITY: not ** vi. * / % vii. + - viii. < <= > >= ix. == != x. and xi. LOWEST PRIORITY: or III. Python Data Types (int, float, strings, lists, boolean, NoneType) and the type function i. Int – integer numbers: 5, 6, 3, 25, etc. j. Float – decimals: 5.0, 3.50, 25.4, etc. k. String – string of words or a phrase: “Hello World” etc. l. List – a list of values contained within brackets: [1, 4, 3, 25] m. Boolean – True/False ...
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...in Section 4.4 when talking about the for loop. In Python, the word “sequence” covers several phenomena. Strings are sequences of characters, and you heard about those in Chapter 3. In the coming sections, you’ll hear about the two other basic types of sequence supported by Python: Lists and tuples. Later in this chapter, we’ll get around to talking about sets and dictionaries. Strings and integers represent concrete data objects; a string or a number represents true data in itself.1 Lists, tuples and dictionaries are designed to organize other data, to impose structure upon it; they do not necessarily represent true data in their own right. For this reason, they are also called abstract data structures. 6.1 Lists and tuples — mutable vs. immutable As I mentioned back in Section 4.4, lists and tuples are indexed just like strings: The first item of a sequence of length l has index 0, and the last has index l-1. You can get the length of a sequence with the built-in function len. You may use negative indices (e.g. −1 for the last item in the sequence),...
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...be scheduled at least two weeks away, Mr. John will have enough time to schedule transportation with the Medicaid driver. Something else to consider is how far will Mr. John have to travel to have any labs or diagnostic test done if the primary care physician does not do the procedures in his facility? With that being said, he may have to miss a whole day of work in order for the Medicaid provided transportation to get him to the necessary location. What if Mr. John is not satisfied with that particular physician? If he decides he does not want to be seen that Dr. So-and-so, Dr. Him-&-him may be located another 40 minutes away. At this time, the transportation factor is immutable as Mr. John cannot afford to purchase a private vehicle. There is a possibility that the distance may be mutable if Mr. John is able to move closer to the urban area. Mr. John’s low income may affect his...
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