Streamline Online Signature Licitness for Healthcare in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: online signature licitness for Healthcare in United Kingdom

we're done in the United States Canada and France none of them are really socialized health care systems to get at that we need to go look at a system like that at the UK more specifically the National Health Service of England is the topic of this week's healthcare triage people like to throw around government-run health care as a phrase most of the time it's a little hyperbolic but in the case of England it's actually pretty accurate the National Health Service there provides care to everyone all kinds of care the system covers everyone who's ordinarily resident in the country basically that means everyone except visitors and illegal immigrants but even those groups can receive free care in emergency departments and for certain infectious diseases coverage is pretty broad preventive services inpatient care outpatient care physicians drugs dental care mental health care palliative care rehabilitation long-term care even some eye care it's all covered and it's pretty much free citizens once they've paid taxes almost everything I mentioned just a few seconds ago has no cost-sharing whatsoever with the exception of dentistry and outpatient drugs the latter have a copay of just over seven and a half pounds inpatient drugs the other hand are still free and there are groups that are exempt even from outpatient drug co-pays kids under 16 no co-pays kids 16 to 18 who are still in school no co-pays if you're 60 or older poor pregnant have had a baby in the last year or have a number of chronic diseases no co-pays it turns out that only 6% of prescriptions actually incur the full copay in England so out-of-pocket costs in England are really really low public expenditures cover more than 80% of all healthcare spending about three-quarters of that comes from general taxes and most of the rest from a payroll tax over-the-counter drugs and other medical products account for another ten percent or so of spending the rest is mostly private hospital care for elective procedures a lot of this is covered by voluntary health insurance most of it part of an employer based benefit system so basically about ten to eleven percent of the population has private supplemental insurance to private insurers cover about two-thirds of all of those people people are required to register with general practice who delivered the vast majority of primary care most gp's work under a national contract with the government and are paid through capitated services a bit of fee for service and bonuses for good performance but unlike most other countries GPS actually work for the government as do specialists almost all of them are salaried at hospitals run by the NHS patients have more of an ability to choose not only which hospitals they'd like to go to but also which specialists they'd like to see in those hospitals than they have in the past about half of specialists treat some private patients and private hospitals as well publicly owned hospitals are run by NHS trusts they're paid for care nationally negotiated diagnosis related group writes or DRG rates some care is purchased through the private sector especially for mental health and elective care finally the NHS pays for long-term care although less today than it used to those who make less than twenty three thousand two hundred and fifty pounds are entitled to free state-funded residential care most residential care is paid for by the private sector though end-of-life palliative care however is provided by the NHS in hospices homes or even hospital what's great about the NHS it's cheap in 2011 England spent about nine point four percent of GDP on health care compared to the OECD average of nine point three percent and the United States 17.7% they spent three thousand four hundred and five dollars on health care per person which is just above the OECD average but that three thousand four hundred and five dollars is only forty percent of the more than eighty five hundred dollars per person spent in the US the number of physicians per 1000 population at two point eight is lower than the OECD average of 3.2 but above the United States two point five which means they have more doctors than we do they produce higher than average numbers of medical graduates as well life expectancy at birth is eighty one point one years above the OECD average mortality from cardiovascular disease is similarly better than average cancer mortality is below average though it's worth acknowledging there have been better than average improvements in the last decade or so infant mortality rates are low as our suicide rates diabetes prevalence is low in spite of the English diet the percentage of adults who report being in good health is well above average and they do this on a shoestring imagine if we in the United States spend 40% of what we do right now on health care we'd have an extra like 1.6 trillion dollars or more to play around with we could massively increase spending on tons of other programs and still have a surplus there are downsides in order to keep spending so low the NHS makes certain decisions other countries might find unpalatable some drugs are unavailable technology is nowhere near as prevalent as in other countries hospital beds are even scarce er than in the United States physicians and nurses work pretty hard hospitals aren't geared towards personal comfort and can be overcrowded understaffed and sometimes even dirty from what I hear waiting times can be longer than in other countries and on many metrics of quality the UK falls below where they would like to be they're working to try to fix some of this they've tried to increase patient's abilities to make choices providers are given more incentives to improve quality transparency and accountability are increasing but as with almost all of these episodes it's important to remember that Britain is a free and democratic nation they chose the NHS and they do so again and again they love their health care system and even elected officials from the Conservative Party supported there are trade-offs to health care systems as there are with so many things in medicine it's easy to demonize socialized medicine for its shortcomings we can't ignore its financial benefits though the NHS may not always be the best but it certainly can lay claim to being efficient