A publicly funded health care system has long been considered the backbone in providing for the health care needs of any given community. That is even more true with the installment of new healthcare laws and the Affordable Care Act. However, this scenario has changed with the entry of private health care businesses that cater to people driven by hyper health consciousness and increasing health awareness. Most people are willing to pay a premium to avoid long queues and the perceived risk of infection in public-sector hospitals, besides availability of a ready access to specialized care. There is a steady increase in private sector hospitals, health hubs, and insurance companies to satiate the growing hunger for quality and customized health care. There are numerous benefits of a private health care system, despite being in the limelight for being an expensive provider.
To name just a few, the top ten benefits of private health care are:
- Quality Health Care: Often, Private Health Care has been equated to quality health care! A patient’s freedom to choose rival providers is the fodder that drives a healthy competition between various health care providers.
- Multi-Speciality Coverage: Private Health Care Providers are the major players when it comes to specialized medical and surgical treatment provided under a single roof or plan.
- Insignificant Waiting Time: The concept of “Service with No Waiting Time” offered by Private Health Care Providers for a premium, is a welcome offing for this busy generation that equates time with money.
- Generation of Jobs: Private health care system has generated abundant health care related jobs in insurance companies, hospitals, residential care facilities and health spas. Today, private health care industry is one of the largest industries in the world.
- Competition: Tough competition for better services at a lower price is what makes the private health care industry a boon for patients.
- Value Added Services: The public health care system falls short when it comes to providing value added services like personalised nursing or intensive care facilities, while their counterparts provide the best of services for a premium.
- Self-Financing: Private health care system does not require Government funding, saving tax payers’ money, with distribution of cost between the providers and their customers.
- Job-Related Health Care Incentives: Many employers provide lucrative private health care incentives as a benefit for employees which reduce government spending on health care.
- Physician Choice: Private Hospitals hand it out to the patient when it comes to choosing their doctors.
- Customised Health Insurance: Most Insurance Companies offer a wide variety of customised health insurance options that suit every patient’s needs.
It is benefits like these that make the private health care system a lucrative business proposition. The conscious effort to outdo the public health care system has generated a highly competitive atmosphere in the healthcare sector that pushes public players to join the fray and offer quality healthcare at a reasonable cost.
Impact on Health Professionals and Patients: A Welcome Side Effect?
Even doctors and other health professionals have experienced a renewed work environment with the stiffening competition in healthcare. Government sector hospitals have started providing benefits to their employees, equivalent to or better than private players, to lure them and make them stay. This in turn pushes private players to provide better packages to health professionals while at the same time keeping essential healthcare reasonably affordable to all sections of society.
Overall, private healthcare has triggered in a quality-cum-cost revolution in both private and public health sectors benefitting end-users in the bargain – doctors and patients. In short, it is a “WIN-WIN” for all.
