There is no doubt that healthcare today is challenged with many issues. In an attempt to improve and stream line health care processes, many organizations have begun to implement improvement programs involving healthcare consulting. However, it has been found on countless occasions that the proposed improvement strategy is neither well coordinated with the vision of the organization, nor is it connected with the strategic plan. HealthCare consulting can only be as effective as the processes that support and enable it. Here are a few issues to consider.

The system

The healthcare issue has been a hot topic for debate in the United States. The debate goes on between congressmen as well as the American public. The system presently lays emphasis on treating medical problems instead of disease prevention and maintenance of health. This system unfortunately, is quite inaccessible since it is so expensive. Cost increases in health insurance exceed average income. People who don't have health insurance approach the figure of nearly fifty million. Also, there are millions of others struggling to afford expensive health premiums.

The government has now adopted a public insurance option resembling Medicare that will apply to younger Americans. Once again, one problem hindering the implementation of this plan is its cost.

The Economy

The environment of healthcare has been seeing changes at an exponential rate. The changes are no longer occurring in measures of months or years. They're showing up daily and even hourly. The U.S. economy's decline has provoked hospitals to reevaluate their approaches. Non-profit hospitals are providing care for more and more people who are uninsured.

Due to not having any insurance, these people wait until they get very sick before seeking help. How much can healthcare consulting help these people? On the other hand, insured people are not exactly in paradise. They bring fixed amounts with themselves. The diagnosis and treatment expenditures often exceed the costs for reimbursement.

The Crushing Burden

Huge workloads burden the medical staff in the physician's office and the hospital. In order to make the healthy income taken for granted in the past, doctors now need to check more patients or other ways to increase revenue. Healthcare consulting has become a need for the doctor and his practice as well as marketing. Laboratory technologists and nurses are just as burdened. The stress associated with work in the health care industry is tremendous, in fact a high incidence of psychiatric disorders affect registered nurses these days. Depression is the most common condition experienced by nursing staff. There is little acknowledgment of service in the current medical field. Gold standard care is expected by patients and this is frequently not possible.

The Troubling Staff Shortages

Shortages seen in healthcare staffing are happening all over again. Nurses and certain other staff are the primary problem when it comes to staffing shortages. The factors that discourage nurses are the long hours, increased patient load, nursing mistakes (which are natural), lack of collaboration, working environment laden with stress, increased overtime and depressed morale. Adequate staffing in all its forms supports consulting within medical practices. In addition, finding and keeping loyal staff remains one of the top issues for medical practice managers to date.

There are many types of consulting for health care practices which include contractual agreements, procedural billing errors, policies and procedures, office operations with the most popular being medical practice software consulting.