Annals of internal medicine
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The American College of Physicians (ACP) has long advocated for universal access to high-quality health care in the United States. Yet, it is essential that the U. S. health system goes beyond ensuring coverage, efficient delivery systems, and affordability. ⋯ This ACP position paper calls for ending discrimination based on personal characteristics; correcting workforce shortages, including the undersupply of primary care physicians; and understanding and ameliorating social determinants of health. The ACP calls for increased efforts to address urgent public health threats, including injuries and deaths from firearms; environmental hazards; climate change; maternal mortality; substance use disorders; and the health risks associated with nicotine, tobacco use, and electronic nicotine delivery systems in order to achieve ACP's vision for a better U. S. health care system.
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The American College of Physicians (ACP) has long advocated for universal access to high-quality health care in the United States. Yet, it is essential that the U. S. health system goes beyond ensuring coverage, efficient delivery systems, and affordability. ⋯ The ACP calls for reform of U. S. payment, delivery, and information technology systems to achieve this vision. The ACP's recommendations include increased investment in primary care; alignment of financial incentives to achieve better patient outcomes, lower costs, reduce inequities in health care, and facilitate team-based care; freeing patients and physicians of inefficient administrative and billing tasks and documentation requirements; and development of health information technologies that enhance the patient-physician relationship.
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Before Canada's single-payer reform, its payment system, health costs, and number of health administrative personnel per capita resembled those of the United States. By 1999, administration accounted for 31% of U.S. health expenditures versus 16.7% in Canada. No recent comprehensive analyses of those costs are available. ⋯ None.