Topic
The Health Care Insurance Policy in the United States
Instructions
Identify problems to address
a. Decide to seriously evaluate the potential for macro level intervention
i. What is the possibility for success?
1. How heavily is the problem affecting clients’ well-being?
2. Is the problem serious enough to merit macro change?
3. Are you willing to think through and appraise your actual potential to make a difference?
4. Are you certain that your clients would support such a macro change and that it is in their best interest?
b. Define and prioritize problems
i. Exactly what client population will be affected?
ii. What type of problem is it?
iii. What is the root of the problem?
c. Translate the problems into needs.
i. Get background data and information to clarify exactly what the need is
ii. Recognize and specify other agencies or programs in the community that already address the need
iii. Talk to other professionals serving similar clients
iv. Get clients involved
v. Consider the value of a more formal needs assessment
d. Determine which need or needs you will address
i. Prioritize
2. Review your macro and personal reality
a. Evaluate macro variables working for or against you in the macro change process
i. Resources and funding
ii. Constraining regulations or laws
iii. Internal political climate
iv. External political climate
v. Other factors
b. Review your personal reality – strengths and weaknesses that may act for or against successful change efforts
3. Establish primary goals
a. Characteristics
i. Goals are derived from some identified problem
ii. The problem can be translated into some specific need, which suggests ideas about
what the change should involve
b. Concepts
i. Potential for permanence (don’t waste efforts on temporary remedies to permanent problems)
ii. Greater influence (choose a goal that is likely to influence more agency units over a goal with more limited effects)
iii. Simplicity (Goals that are simpler to manage over those that are more complex and require a lot of administrative effort)
4. Identify relevant people of influence
a. Whom do you know who might be available to help you make the changes you want to pursue?
b. Rationales for internal advocacy
i. Being the champion of or defending the rights of clients even when it’s not necessarily part of the job description
5. Assess potential costs and benefits to clients and agency
a. Costs
i. Lost time on other projects
b. Ask questions
i. Will the results be worth the effort?
ii. Might alternative solutions produce more benefits at lower cost?
iii. Who get the benefits and who pays the cost?
6. Review professional and personal risk
a. Questions
i. To what extent are you in danger of losing your job?
ii. To what extent will such macro change efforts decrease your potential for upward mobility within the agency?
iii. To what extent would your efforts for macro change seriously strain your interpersonal relationships at work?
b. Strengths perspective on risk
i. Could this enhance your reputation and open new avenues for professional growth?
7. Evaluate the potential success of a macro change process
a. Review the PREPARE process and weigh the Pros and Cons of proceeding
b. Identify possible macro approaches to use, estimate their effectiveness and select the most appropriate one
i. Transition from deciding to take macro change steps to actually doing it.
Answer preview
Health Care Insurance in the United States, even after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, does not cover the costs of psychotherapy, or medicines, despite the need for the same. Mental health in the United States is on new a high, which means it, requires a reform in policy to ensure that people diagnosed with mental illness can seek medical help. Many people do not seek mental health care, because the same is not covered under insurance policies. This means that patients have to remove money from their pockets to deal or seek medical help.
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