Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation, and Compromise / Edition 1

by Robert I. Field

Overview

Regulation shapes all aspects of America's fragmented health care industry, from the flow of dollars to the communication between physicians and patients. It is the engine that translates public policy into action. While the health and lives of patients, as well as almost one-sixth of the national economy depend on its effectiveness, health care regulation in America is bewilderingly complex. Government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels direct portions of the industry, but hundreds of private organizations do so as well. Some of these overseers compete with one another, some conflict, and others collaborate. Their interaction is as important to the provision of health care as are the laws and rules they implement.

Health Care Regulation in America is a guide to this regulatory maze. It succinctly recaps the past and present conflicts that have guided the oversight of each industry segment over the past hundred years and explains the structure of regulation today. To make the system comprehensible, this book also presents the sweep of regulatory policy in the context of the interests, values, goals, and issues that guide it. Chapters cover the process of regulation and each key area of regulatory focus - professionals, institutions, financing arrangements, drugs and devices, public health, business relationships, and research.

In a uniquely American way, the system thrives on confrontation between competing interests but survives by engendering compromise. Robert Field shows that health care regulation is an inexorable force that nurtures as well as restricts the enterprise of American health care. For the student, practitioner, executive, policy analyst, or concerned citizen, this book is an invaluable guide to the policy, politics, and practice of an industry that directly touches us all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195159684
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	9.27(w) x 6.51(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

University of the Sciences, Philadelphia

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The History, Policies, and Structures that Shape Health Care Regulation2. Regulation of Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals3. Regulation of Hospitals and Other Health Care Institutions4. Regulation and Administration of Health Care Finance5. Regulation of Drugs and Health Care Products6. Regulation of Public Health7. Regulation of Health Care Business Relationships8. Regulation and Funding of Research9. New Regulatory Horizons and Old Policy ConflictsNotes. Selected Bibliography. Publications in Print. On the Internet. Appendices. Appendix A: List of Regulatory Agencies and Organizations. Appendix B: Chronology of Public Health Regulation. Appendix C: List of Acronyms.

Editorial Reviews

"This invaluable book fills a major gap in the health services research literature. It is an important source of information on health care regulations for health professionals, policy analysts, researchers, graduate students in medicine, nursing, public health, and public policy studies, and concerned citizens who are interested in unraveling the complex maze of regulations that govern America's health care."—Inquiry

"Professor Robert I. Field succeeds in charting a map of health law in his new book...Anyone seeking an introduction to health law or teaching within the field will find the book valuable, and, by incorporating health economics into its organizational framework, the book also offers promising paths for future cartographers and explorers of the terrain."—The Journal of Legal Medicine

From the Publisher