Question

Explain how rising hospital costs have contributed to the shift towards outpatient care.

Answer 1

Outpatient care involves various medical facilities that are provided to the patients without them being required to stay at hospital overnight. These are medical procedures, tests & services like diagnostic services involving x-rays, MRI scans or wellness & prevention services like counselling, treatments like chemotherapy, etc. Inpatient care is usually expensive than outpatient care. In case of inpatient care, the patient needs to remain admitted in the hospital for a period of time suggested by the doctor & therefore, it proves to be more expensive. When a patient remains admitted in a hospital for treatment then he is required to bear the costs of using the bed at the facility, the time & services provided by medical professionals & all other resources that are provided to him within the facility. All these contribute towards expensive treatment. So, when the nature of illness is so that it can be treated in an outpatient setting, then patients prefer to do so due to rising hospital costs. When overnight monitoring & care of hospital is not required for a particular illness then patients prefer to choose outpatient setting in order to minimize costs. Outpatient care is provided by community health clinics, pharmacies, urgent care clinics, etc. which is cheaper than inpatient care. Outpatient care is less expensive because it does not require patient's continued presence in the facility which means that he uses less of hospital's resources. So, patients go for medical care that they can get outside hospital because it is cheaper. Outpatient care helps patients to receive medical services at lowest possible price. So, outpatient care is cost effective in comparison to inpatient care. Therefore, we can say that rising hospital costs have contributed to the shift towards outpatient care.