Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
Follow-up Response
An excellent discussion. Your discussion is articulate and provides great insights into the impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on occupational therapy’s scope of practice. Your evaluation of the ACA of 2010 reflects on the initial aim of the policy which was to transform the healthcare systems in an effort to improve quality, access, and care affordability for millions of Americans (Pritchard et al., 2019). The discussion is thoughtful and creatively written to depict the way this act was an expansive policy in bringing millions of uninsured Americans onto board. For instance, the area of occupational therapy was not left out and became an important part of the ACA in enhancing leadership, service delivery, and primary health care. According to the discussion, the inclusion of occupation therapy in the ACA has enabled coverage and expanded the roles to areas including prevention, wellness, and patient and caregiver delivery models (Ercia, 2021). Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper The use of occupational health has greatly helped in collaboration and the development of strategies that are helping in care coordination aimed at reducing the length of stay and also reducing readmission rates. The greater effects of occupation therapy are discussed to have huge impacts in private practice, home health, outpatient therapy, and across the long-term care setting. This model of care has served to give the care providers autonomy in heaping time to work more on patient care as opposed to documentation (Rouch et al., 2022). Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
Evaluation of this peer discussion has greatly improved my perception of occupation therapy practice. It reflects important elements of the practice and the impacts it brings to the care systems including giving care providers more autonomy to meet the patients’ needs. Additionally, this model has helped improve communication since there is little documentation and reporting as digital systems like telehealth capture and safely store all relevant patients and departmental information. Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
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References
Ercia, A. (2021). The impact of the Affordable Care Act on patient coverage and access to care: perspectives from FQHC administrators in Arizona, California, and Texas. BMC Health Serv Res 21, 920. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06961-9
Pritchard, K. T., Fisher, G., McGee Rudnitsky, K., & Ramirez, R. D. (2019). Policy and Payment Changes Create New Opportunities for Occupational Therapy in Acute Care. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy: official publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association, 73(2), 7302109010p1–7302109010p8. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2018.732002
Rouch, S. A., Klinedinst, T. C., White, J. S., & Leland, N. E. (2022). Exploring Occupational Therapists’ Experiences in U.S. Primary Care Settings: A Qualitative Study. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy: official publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association, 76(1), 7601180010. https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2022.049001
In your follow-up responses, you should do the following:
Pick two peer posts outside of your discipline. Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
Identify and comment on how changes in your peersâ€
disciplines may have impacted your workflow or productivity.
Suggest how better communication may have improved processes for both disciplines.
Peer post:
Unit 3 Week 8: How did the Affordable Care Act impact occupational therapy scope of practice?
Signed into law in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to transform the healthcare system to improve quality, access, and affordability for millions of Americans (Pritchard et al., 2019). The ACA provides health coverage for millions of uninsured or poorly insured Americans as well as expanded eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in participating states (Yuen et al., 2017). With the implementation of the ACA, both opportunities and challenges for the occupational therapy practitioner (OTP) have resulted. Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
Benefits of the ACA for the OTP include the expansion of occupational therapy services to individuals covered by the ACA, additional opportunities for roles and leadership in public health or varied service delivery models, and greater involvement in primary care (Yuen et al., 2017). This expansion of healthcare coverage increased the ability to provide occupational therapy services to many who could not have afforded so beforehand. The shift to having the client collaborate in the decision-making process in regard to healthcare management was another outcome of the ACA as often copays and third-party insurers became involved (Hooper & Richardson, 2022). Furthermore, the OTP has expanded its role in many areas related to prevention, wellness, patient and caregiver education, and quality of life for all patients (Pritchard et al., 2019). Additional forms of delivery models such as telehealth emerged as a result of the ACA as well (Cason, 2012). As part of the care coordination team, the OTP had more involvement during the collaboration and development of strategies to decrease the length of stay and reduce readmission rates (Pritchard et al. 2019). Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper
The ACA affected practice settings differently, with greater impacts seen impacting private practice, outpatient therapy, home health, and long-term care settings (Yuen et al, 2017). Greater focus on documenting outcome-focused care, billing, and coding increases the pressure on practitioners to spend more time documenting and less time on patient care. Additional pressures on productivity have resulted in practitioners feeling a sense of being micromanaged with every moment of their day needing to be accounted for (Yuen et al, 2017). Furthermore, added pressure to reduce hospital length of stays and fear of reimbursement penalties if patients are readmitted within 30 days appear unrealistic when providing patient care to those with progressive or more involved medical conditions (Fisher & Friesema, 2013). Moreover, while collaborative care delivery should be a benefit to the ACA, limitations of the frequency of collaboration occurring are compromised due to time restraints and the employment of fewer full-time therapists replaced by less expensive per diem staff (Yuen et al., 2017). While the ACA has provided access to health care to so many Americans, I question whether the quality of healthcare services has truly been achieved. Occupational Therapy in Acute Care Assignment Paper