PAM 5570

Health Care Organizations

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2017-2018.

Graduate-level introduction to the organization of health providers in the United States, the interrelationships of health services and the major sources and methods of paying for care. Describes how health services are structured in the United States and how these different services interrelate along the continuum of care. Describes and analyzes organization, delivery, and financing issues from a variety of perspectives using specific performance criteria (e.g., equity, quality, efficiency). Also presents innovations by the public and private sectors in the delivery and reimbursement of health care.

When Offered Fall.

• Understanding the basic organizational setup of the US health care system, also from a historical perspective, its various components, how they relate and interact.
• Gaining a good knowledge of the financial flows within and between the system components, how health care in the US is financed, and how providers are reimbursed.
• Understanding the main objectives und functions of (health) insurances from a theoretical point of view and why theory and reality may differ.
• Acquiring tools to understand and analyze the economic incentives at work between insurers and providers as well as between providers and insurees.
• Identifying key problem areas within the US health care system; evaluating reform proposals with the tools and knowledge acquired throughout the course, and making own reform suggestions.
• Understanding the legislative and political process of health policy reforms, how it relates to the general organization of the health care system, and developing awareness of issues entailed.
• Assimilating different basic principles of how health care systems can be organized; understanding organizational differences between the American and other international health care systems.
• Acquiring the ability to understand and analyze complex issues and processes.
• Learning to isolate objective arguments from value judgements and ideology and why this is of particular importance when health care is involved
• Practicing how to provide constructive critique and how to deal with constructive critique; improving the ability to work effectively in teams and learning how to express arguments and ideas in a constructive, clear and concise manner.

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