Access, equity, and accountability remain elusive goals for the U.S. health care system. Users of health care services have serious concerns about the responsiveness of the system. Patients want more time with providers, and want assurances that providers have no financial incentives influencing their judgment, even as our system deliberately designs restricted time and financial incentives into the processes of care. Providers also express frustration with administrative rules that add paperwork and interfere with practice autonomy. Public policy debate has been largely limited to discussions of cost containment and financing mechanisms. Issues related to content, context, and quality of care have either been ignored or purposely distorted by groups seeking to protect their financial stake. Therefore, critical assumptions and questions about the health care system have not been addressed, increasing the risk that community and societal values will not be incorporated in the system's evolution. Key questions include: 1. What are essential health services? 2. Who decides which services are needed? 3. How are these decisions made? 4. How and to whom are the decision makers accountable? New methods to introduce these questions into public discussions throughout the nation are necessary. Communities that need health care and health care providers should be natural allies in advocating for a system that addresses these issues in accordance with community values. This paper presents an overview of how community/provider coalitions can be created to both debate these issues and to advocate for change.
Learning Objectives: 1. To identify issues related to health care reform that have been absent from national policy discussions. 2. To identify how community-provider coalitions can be organized to identify these issues and have them addressed in health care policy 3. To describe methods by which such coalitions can be established in communities.
Keywords: Health Reform, Community-Based Partnership
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.