NURS 8100 Week 1 Assignment: Staying Current: Online Resources

Barbie,

Thank you for your very informative and interesting post. I, like you, was intrigued about the for individuals. In our reading from this week, I found it especially interesting to gain a better understanding of the transition of Medicare over time from the basic (Traditional) plan to the Medicare Advantage plan. According to Bodenheimer & Grumbach (2020), The advantage plan was enacted to provide increased oversight over expenses. The plan designated the providers those patients were permitted to see, hospitals they could receive care from, and included an increase in preventative care services to reduce the incidence of disease and chronic illness. However, this did not prove to be beneficial because the private pay plans that contracted with Medicare worked to up-code for illnesses to receive a more profitable reimbursement. In the end, although the participants were in better health the plan cost the government more money.

Additionally, Song and Basu (2019), discuss the weaknesses embedded in the plan itself. One example they provided was that even though participants are enrolled in the same Medicare Advantage plan federal subsidies that provided rebates to patients were grossly inequitable between states for patients with the same risk scores. The authors of this article aimed to make recommendations about how to improve the Medicare system. They point out that one of the existing problems is that a bid is made annually by private insurers that contract with Medicare for how they will insure or offer plans to their participants, but the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) set a benchmark for counties based on the health of the population in that county. The recommendation from these authors is that the CMS benchmark should always be the final benchmark unless the contracted insurers come in lower than the benchmark, then that could be the new plan offering. I find it thought-provoking to consider so many interesting facets of our health care system when considering how we pay for health care.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• The is a great resource

 

 

References:

Bodenheimer, T., & Grumbach, K. (2020).  Understanding health policy: A clinical approach (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Song, Z., & Basu, S. (2019). Improving Affordability and Equity in Medicare Advantage. Inquiry (00469580), 56, N.PAG.

The issue of health disparities and racial inequities in health care, still remains a major thorny issue, with politics being one of the contributory factors. The ongoing COVID 19 pandemic exposed the longstanding structural drivers of health inequities, precarious and adverse working conditions, growing economic disparities, anti-democratic political processes, institutions, breaches, racial and social inequities, disparities in health delivery, especially in the minority communities (Paremoer et al., 2021).  The contributing factors were indicated long before the pandemic, and yet nothing was done to alleviate them. This, unfortunately, led to high discrepancies rates of infection and death in racial and ethnic minority communities compared with white communities (Gómez et a., 2021), which could have been avoided. The Covid-19 has hence, crystallized the need to address the “toxic combination of poor social policies, unfair economics, and bad politics, which are responsible for the health inequities” (Paremoer et al., 2021). The pandemic indicated that the health effects of the longstanding inequities, vulnerability to diseases, are determined by “labor market structures, lack of social protection, and anti-democratic processes” (Paremoer et al., 2021), while the structural inequity on populations is mediated by intersecting social dimensions. These can be resolved by eliminating obstacles to health, such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, powerlessness, lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education, and housing, safe environments (Gómez et a., 2021). The governments must and should take responsibility for” rebuilding social protection and solidarity to protect populations from future health challenges” (Paremoer et al., 2021), and society with other social movements should hold them accountable. Having equal access to opportunities for all citizens to lead healthy lives, translates to achieving health equity, the “attainment of the highest level of health for all people” (Gómez et al., 2021).

References.

Gómez, C. A., Kleinman, D. V., Pronk, N., Wrenn Gordon, G. L., Ochiai, E., Blakey, C., Johnson, A., & Brewer, K. H. (2021). Addressing Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health Through Healthy People 2030. Journal of Public Health Management & Practice, 27, S249–S257. 

Paremoer L, Nandi S, Serag H, Baum F. (2021). Covid-19 pandemic and the social determinants of health BMJ; 372: n129 doi:10.1136/bmj. n129