By Ted Chan, Founder & CEO of CareDash Millions of Americans might be about to lose health care, potentially triggering a crisis at medical facilities across the nation. The GOP now controls the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. They will likely make good on their promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare.) While Republican lawmakers have consistently promised to “repeal and replace” the law that insured 22 million, so far Congress has offered no plan for insuring those who can’t afford insurance or can’t get covered because of pre-existing conditions.. We anticipate this will have major ramifications for caregivers, and significantly impact the…
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Expanding the Role of RNs and Advanced Practice Nurses
By Vance Hobbes With the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in March 2012, some 30 million new patients have been able to access healthcare of which they were previously unable to. With health professionals already squeezed for time and unable to fit any more patients on their schedules, there must be some way of absorbing these additional patients into hospitals and clinics. How will this be possible then? An immediate solution to this problem is to open the opportunity for registered nurses and advanced practice nurses to take on some of the responsibilities previously exclusive to doctors. Now I am certainly not suggesting these nurses should take over…
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How will the Results of the Presidential Election Affect Workers in the Allied Health Fields?
Barack Obama’s victory in the U.S. presidential election makes it very difficult for the Republicans to eliminate or make significant adjustments to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act is scheduled to be fully implemented in 2014. So how will it affect allied health care jobs? There are a variety of thoughts on the issue. According to a recent report from the Auburn Citizen in New York, U.S. Representative Anne Marie Buerkle believes a recent decision of a local hospital to lay off 25 workers can be directly attributed to the reduced Medicare reimbursements caused by the Affordable Care Act. Other experts believe Medicare payment…
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The Doctor Shortage and Nurses’ Role in Filling the Gaps
By Kathryn Norcutt Doctor shortage could be intensified by the Affordable Care Act Despite how one may feel about the Affordable Care Act, it is going to change the face of American medicine forever. For better or for worse, once it is up and running in 2014 an estimated 30 million newly insured people will have access to the health care system outside of the emergency room. This is great news for anyone who works in or has been forced to visit one of the thousands of overcrowded emergency rooms across the US, however, the looming doctor shortage will loom even larger once those patients have access to specialists in…
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Do You Understand How the Affordable Care Act Affects the Nursing Profession?
The Affordable Care Act is going to come under attack in Congress again soon. Many of us can share reasons why we need this law from our own harrowing experiences with pre-existing clauses and insurance that capped out etc. Here’s some of the ways the law impacts nurses and the future of nursing…