In: Nursing
You have an opportunity to advocate for services that you judge should be included or excluded in your state's healthcare plan for allocating healthcare resources to Medicaid recipients. You take this task seriously for many reasons, but one is that the federal government has given your state the opportunity to develop an allocation plan for Medicaid reform nationally. now the real crisis has come because several important services that the members of this inter-professional task force hoped could be included are not. You now have to decide among yourselves how to make the final cuts but not tinker with the list created by the first part of the process that has received approval. The task force has six possible services that could be added for the state's 20,000 Medicaid recipients (all estimated costs are annual, and the task force has $46,136,000 to adjudicate).
a. preventive dental care for children ages 2 to 6 years. Includes a yearly check-up and teeth cleaning. Does not include fillings, orthodontics, or other acute dental or surgical services. Estimated cost: $3,760,000.
b. Outpatient mental health services (initial evaluation and up to 12 visits) for children and adolescents (ages 4 to 19 years). Does not include medications or hospitalization. Estimated cost: $8,000,000.
c. Smoking-related asthma treatments. Estimated cost: $8,860,000.
d. Liver transplantation and follow-up. Estimated cost: $12,200,000.
e. Mammograms for women younger than 50 years. Estimated cost: $6,900,000.
f. Coverage for pain management for patients with chronic back pain, including medications, rehabilitation, and pain centers, but not including surgery, which could be covered in another surgical category that ranked higher on the list of services. Estimated cost: $21,040,000.
Rank order, with highest priority number 1 and lowest 6, and write your rationale below each one. When you have reached $46,136,000 you have exhausted the remaining available funds.
Address items that did not make the cut and justify your position other than you ran out of money.