"A Productivity Press book."

Includes bibliographical references and index

Whether our healthcare system reached its current crisis by way of fragmentation and misaligned policy or by way of self-interest and shortsightedness, what matters now is that the system is so convoluted and complex that only those intimate with its complex ways can hope to unravel the tangle. Creative healthcare providers and business experts adept at problem solving stand ready to weigh in with viable solutions but first they must be ordained in the terminology and the layers of confusion that have become endemic to the system. The author has made her reputation explaining the U.S. healthcare maze to IT professionals, students, and others not savvy to the arcane structures that make up our current system. She distills the whole of the U.S. healthcare system into something comprehensible if not logical and consequently, remediable. In this work, she examines the history of U.S. healthcare and details the maze of the current unforgiving system; explores the regulations that add more complexity than protection; discusses current and potential means of financing; and looks at the contemporary movement towards quality and the solutions that technology can offer. This work contains up to date information and data drawn from the most recent reports and statistics available. It addresses key issues in the healthcare industry, including the quality of care movement, the importance of information technology, financing reform, and payment incentives, and concludes with a look at specific areas of the global market including medical tourism and the driving forces behind the future or our healthcare system