Understanding Health Policy: A Clinical Approach

Softcover: 232 pages
ISBN 0071496068
9780071496063
McGraw-Hill Medical
August 2008
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"This highly readable text gives a broad but detailed picture of how health care is organized and dispensed in the United States. It considers the problems of, and possible solutions for, cost control, long-term care, quality control, ethical issues, and insurance programs. Clinicians are likely to find the text attractive because of its supportive flowcharts and its frequent use of specific, concrete examples." - Annals of Internal Medicine

"Well documented and highly readable." - National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Facilities Newsletter

"One of the more interesting, readable texts in health policy to appear in recent years." - American Journal of Health System Pharmacy

"The title doesn't do the book justice. It's not only about health care policy and its implications, it's about the health care system, applied to highly clinically relevant situations . . . it provides an unobstructed view of the complicated health care system." - Advance/PA

"Goes a long way toward helping readers understand how the health care system worked in the past, how it is changing, and how it might work under different scenarios in the future." - Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law

Table of Contents:

	Preface
1	Introduction: The Changing U.S. Health Care System	1
2	Paying for Health Care	5
3	Access to Health Care	15
4	Reimbursing Health Care Providers	33
5	Capitation Payment in Managed Care	44
6	How Health Care Is Organized - I	53
7	How Health Care Is Organized - II	67
8	Painful Versus Painless Cost Control	78
9	Mechanisms for Controlling Costs	89
10	Long-Term Care	104
11	The Prevention of Illness	113
12	The Quality of Health Care	127
13	Medical Ethics & the Rationing of Health Care	144
14	Health Care in Four Nations	160
15	National Health Insurance	176
16	Conflict & Change in U.S. Health Care	185
17	The Health Care Workforce	195
18	Conclusion: Tensions & Challenges	206
19	Questions & Discussion Topics	209
	Index	217

The leading text in the field, Understanding Health Policy covers fundamental topics such as cost containment, health insurance, managed care, and physician and hospital payment. The authors bring to life important policy issues by providing extensive case histories that pinpoint individual encounters within the health care system.

Updated throughout to reflect recent changes in insurance coverage, health care expenditures, and health care organization
Expanded to include discussion of the defined contribution approach to cost control, medical errors, and new approaches to quality improvement and the uncertain future facing managed care
Extensive case histories
Brand new chapter on the Health Care Work Force, including sections on physicians, registered nurses, advanced practice nurses, and pharmacists and on women and minorities in the health professions
Includes "Questions and Discussion Topics" for classroom or individual study

Thomas Bodenheimer, MD, is professor of health policy and family medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Kevin Grumbach, MD, is chair, Department of Family Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco.

If you are interested in policy or books about health care reform, please see our up-to-date collection here: Politics, Policy & Reform.

(information from the publisher)

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