As the CEO of a major medical facility in Boca Raton, Florida, patient care is not only my top priority but also a top priority for the administration, physicians and staff at West Boca Medical Center. In todays economic environment, one of the biggest challenges to face administrators in private healthcare facilities is providing care for an increasing number of uninsured or underinsured patient populations. This growing segment of our patient base challenges our resources and serves as a hidden form of taxation, resulting in higher healthcare costs for the insured and their employees.
At West Boca Medical Center, we have an interactive, strong and viable emergency service both for adults and pediatrics, which serves as the front line for treating patients who lack access to primary care physicians and specialists. The “readiness costs” associated with the myriad of issues that can occur in the emergency environment consume time, energy and resources from the management team and medical staff, making it difficult to continue to infuse more capital for modernization and staffing if the level of unfunded care continues to grow.
In Palm Beach County, our legislative leaders and representatives have been formant for years addressing under-funded, indigent care and associated medical legal issues surrounding tort reform. The present and upcoming debate on Healthcare Reform at a national level will clearly result in changes as to how healthcare is organized, delivered and provided.
Healthcare is a complex, multi-functional, multi-layered spectrum of services. Historically regulating one area such as hospitals and having lax oversight of the health insurance business or manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and implantable devices has lead to numerous inequities. Solving the problem of the uninsured and under-funded care requires insurance reform, tort reform, adequate supply of current and future medical practitioners, taxation increases to support growth in expenditures and bio-ethical discussions of appropriate rationing of care and how to deal with the needs of people experiencing a longer life cycle. This is a challenging but exciting time in healthcare I look forward to participating to make healthcare services more widely available.
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