Obesity Policy Change and Advocacy Strategies in the United States

Discussion Board 9

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Discussion Board 9

Obesity as a Public Health and Reimbursement Issue

This paper will peek into the public health issue of Obesity (CDC, 2017) facing obstacles in achieving policy change in the United States and would suggest advocacy strategies to achieve that policy change. Obesity is one of the major healthcare issues facing inadequate medical reimbursement policy in the United States (Pozniak et al., 2010). With the prevalence rate of 42.4% in the United States alone, during 2017-2018, Obesity is considered as a serious, common and a costly disease (CDC, n.d.). Moreover, in one of the research studies on the perceptions of physicians on the medical reimbursement in providing care for their diabetic patients indicated that the current reimbursements for diabetic patients’ care is too low, which becomes a hindrance to providing a comprehensive care to their patients (Pozniak et al., 2010). 

Medical Reimbursement as a Barrier to Comprehensive Care

The study involved a web-based qualitative survey of 300 physicians, an online discussion of 12 physicians on the 10 services provided by the American Diabetes Association (Pozniak et al., 2010). The results of the study indicated that 83% - 95% physicians commented that the Medicaid Reimbursement was inadequate, 75 - 89% suggested Medicare reimbursements to be inadequate and around 67-86% were of the view that the private reimbursements were inadequate (Pozniak et al., 2010). The results confirm that even the healthcare providers are of the view that the reimbursement policies are a barrier for providing comprehensive care to their patients. The removal of such barriers to achieving optimum health outcomes is important as they can be detrimental to the patients’ well-being and this would in turn affect the public health of the communities. Therefore, aligning the guidelines of American Diabetes Association and the reimbursement policies is important to ensure an optimal care for diabetic patients (Pozniak et al., 2010).

Advocacy Strategies to Bring Out the Policy Change

In order to bring out the policy change on Obesity treatment in the United States, the use of media to highlight the problem of inadequate Medicaid reimbursement can be a great way to identify and frame the problem (Lyn et al., 2016). Another way of raising awareness on the matter is to make policy briefs and educating the key stakeholders including the policy makers and public on these obesity related health issue facts (Lyn et al., 2016). Besides these, identifying policy solutions through evidence-based recommendations and building support and political will are the key advocacy tools in bringing out the desired change in the existing policy for the betterment of the people of United States (Lyn et al., 2016).

References

CDC (n.d.) Adult Obesity Facts. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

CDC (2017) Public Health Professionals Gateway. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Available at https://www.cdc.gov/psr/index.html 

Lyn, R. et al. (2016) Policy, Systems, and Environmental Approaches for Obesity Prevention: A 

Framework to Inform Local and State Action. J Public Health Manag Pract. doi: 

10.1097/PHH.0b013e3182841709. Available at 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4943076/ 

Pozniak, A., Olinger, L., and Shier, V. (2010) Physicians' Perceptions of Reimbursement as a 

Barrier to Comprehensive Diabetes Care. Am Health Drug Benefits. Available at

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4106549/

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