In the response post below, include the following:

• Consider how you are impacted, either personally or professionally, by the areas of healthcare your classmate identified.
• Provide feedback on how healthcare reform could impact the areas of healthcare your classmate identified.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Hello, classmates. My name is Chase Polinsky, and at 26, I was inspired to return to school to pursue a career in the medical field. I have worked as a holistic Yoga Teacher and Personal Trainer for several years. That experience has strongly influenced my desire to transition into healthcare. I believe that combining the skills I have developed in the health and fitness industry and those that I learn moving forward will help make a difference in the lives of every patient and client I get to provide service for. I am also eagerly awaiting a response regarding a phlebotomist position at my local hospital. The entry-level position offers a future with ample educational advancement opportunities. Understanding hospital structures, insurance systems, public policy, and patient access through the US Healthcare Systems class will certainly help me thrive by understanding the fundamentals of the broad system in which I will pursue my future.

The Areas of Healthcare I Believe in Reforming

Reform Price Transparency, And How We Bill Patients

The American Healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, spending more per capita than any other developed nation in the world. Despite this, the U.S sees a consistently lower life expectancy and health outcomes compared to our First World counterparts. This is heavily driven by general administrative costs, insurance costs, and inflated care costs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 27.2 million American citizens are estimated to be without health insurance (2025), mainly because they struggle to afford employer-sponsored premiums. This is especially a problem when considering hospital service price inflation. According to the GoodRx website, an unexpected E.R. trip could cost just one individual anywhere between $2,400 to $2,600 USD (2025) just to walk through the door. If you visit the E.R. without insurance, you can end up paying this full inflated amount. The historical roots of hospital price inflation are traced to the 1950s. At the time, insurers brought significant business to hospitals, so insurance companies would demand steep discounts from medical facilities. This created somewhat of a blank check environment, incentivizing hospitals to dramatically inflate their service prices to increase revenue. This contributed to the creation of the document known as The Chargemaster’. The Chargemaster is a document which states the price of every service, medication, and procedure that the hospital or medical facility provides. Even as the health insurance industry matured, the chargemaster is still used as the default billing schedule for the uninsured and other self-pay patients. While the chargemaster has faced extreme scrutiny in recent years for excessive price gouging, hospitals maintain that these documents are primarily a byproduct of mandatory public reporting requirements. The process for updating the chargemaster is usually driven by the need to incorporate new services or adjust rates for highly competitive procedures; therefore, it remains an artifact of institutional policy rather than a real reflection of clinical value. Reforming healthcare costs starts with asking Why is the bill so high in the first place? and reforming the outdated model. Being honest with patients and ourselves is truly the first step to reforming the system.

Reform Care Coordination

A second major area I believe is a viable candidate for reform is Care Coordination within the U.S. healthcare system. The American healthcare system is often fragmented in the sense that there is a major disconnect between different medical providers and hospitals. This can become an overwhelming issue particularly for vulnerable populations who may have to see multiple specialists across different hospitals and clinics. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2023), poor care coordination can lead to medication errors, duplicated testing, preventable hospital readmissions, and a major increase in healthcare costs for an individual and the facility of which a patient receives care. Proper coordination among providers can also prevent a patient from finding themselves at a facility outside of their insurance network, saving overall health costs. Improving communication among providers through integrated health records, collaboration, and patient-centered care models can significantly improve these outcomes by reducing medical complications and improving overall stability. Understanding how healthcare systems operate will help me navigate these structural challenges as I move into clinical practice. By combining my philosophy of preventative healthcare with systemic knowledge, I hope to contribute to a healthcare environment that prioritizes both longevity and quality of life for everyone I encounter.

Conclusion

In conclusion, reforming the current healthcare system through improved patient care coordination and honest pricing models is more than a professional objective; it is a commitment to humanity. These two areas of reform not only reduce national medical spending but also directly improve the safety and financial wellbeing of the patients we serve. My goal as a future healthcare professional is to advocate for systems that replace the sticker price and ensure healthcare remains a service rooted in dignity and integrity.

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2023). Care coordination.

C.D.C (2025)

Main Line Health Charge Master FAQ. (2018)

Resources on Price Transparency and Values for Teaching Hospitals