Week 1 - Introduction to Health Policy Flashcards
What are the 3 goals of public health services? What are the 10 essential public health services and how do they fit into the 3 goals?
Assessment: monitor, investigate
Policy development: educate, mobilize, policy and planning
Assurance: enforce, link, assure, evaluate
What are 5 details about health policies?
Policies are decisions made by humans.
Positive consequences or Negative consequences.
Health policies are government policies or authoritative decisions that affect health or the desire for health.
Direct or influence the actions, behaviors, or decision of others.
The impact and influence of health policy on groups, individuals, or organizations.
What are the 2 types of policymaking?
Public policy: the policies created by the federal, state, and local governments
Private policy: policy created by private organizations
Examples: Managed Care Organization, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
What are the 5 forms of health policy?
- Laws
- Rules/regulations
- Operational decisions
- Judicial decisions
- Macro policies
What are 4 details about laws?
Laws: policies made in the legislative branch
A rule of conduct or action set, formally recognized, and enforced by a governing body
Enacted by any government level
Additionally known as a program
What are 3 details about rules/regulations?
Rules/regulations: policies made in the executive branch
Signed to direct the application of the legislation and laws
Can be made by the organizations and agencies responsible for implementing laws in the executive branch
What are 3 details about operational decisions?
Executive branch makes operational choices as part of a law’s execution
Decisions often consist of protocols and procedures that accompany introduction of a new law
Typically less permanent than rules and regulations
What is 1 detail and example regarding judicial decisions?
Policies are formed as a result of judicial decisions
Example: a 1992 ruling by a DHHS administrative law judge concluded a hospital violated the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1974
What are 2 details and 1 example of macro policies?
Macro policies are wide and expansive
Fundamentally impacting the pursuit of health in a society
Example: FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals
What are the 2 categories of public health policies?
- Allocative
- Regulatory
What are 2 details and 2 examples of allocative policies?
Designed to deliver net benefits to a specific group of individuals or organizations at the expense of others to achieve public goals
Typically consist of subsidies
Examples: medicare/medicaid policies, federal aid to medical schools
What are regulatory policies?
Policies intended to affect the actions, behaviors, and decisions of others in order to achieve public goals
What are the 5 main categories of regulatory policies?
- Social regulations
- Quality controls on the provision of health services
- Market-entry decisions
- Rate or price-setting controls on health service providers
- Market-preserving controls
What is the purpose of social regulations? Give examples.
Achieve socially desirable outcomes and and reduce socially undesirable outcomes
Examples: environmental protection, childhood immunization requirements, and no smoking
What is the purpose of quality controls? Give examples.
Ensure that providers of health services adhere to accepted quality standards and that producers of health-related items meet safety and efficacy requirements
Examples: FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals and new Pay for Performance (P4P) regulations
What are market-entry restrictions? Give examples
Regulations that concentrate on practitioner licensing and organizations
Examples: certificate of need programs and physician credentialing
What is the purpose of rate/price controls? Give an example.
Intended to keep price increases under control.
Example: the federal government’s control of the rates of reimbursement to hospitals that participate in the Medicare program
What are market-preserving controls? Give an example.
Define and enforce market participant conduct requirement.
Example: antitrust legislation
What are the 6 things related to policy and law that affect healthcare and public health?
- Federal and state policy and law
- Specific areas of influence
- Impact of policymaker choices and judicial decisions
- Seminal role in public health
- Balancing regulation and rights
- Addressing competing interests
What is the role of federal and state policy and law in healthcare and public health?
Shape all aspects of the healthcare system, including structure
and organization, service delivery, financing, and both
administrative and judicial oversight
What are the roles of specific areas of influence in healthcare and public health?
Advertising and marketing of health services and products,
healthcare contracting, employment issues, taxation,
healthcare disparities, consumer protection, bioterrorism,
health insurance, and prescription drug regulation
What is the role of the impact of policymaker choices and judicial decisions in healthcare and public health?
Influence how we approach, experience, analyze, and research
all these and other specific aspects of the healthcare system
What is the seminal role policy and law make in public health?
Policy and law have historically played a crucial role in
everyday public health activities and many significant public
health accomplishments
How does balancing regulations and rights affect healthcare and public health?
The primary focus of policy and law in public health is finding
the appropriate balance between public regulation of private
individuals and corporations, and the protection of rights that
limit government intervention
