The role of the nurse in implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

4 postsRe: Topic 4 DQ 2

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), is the healthcare reform legislation, the regulatory rebuild of the U.S. healthcare system, mostly known for the expansion of coverage.

States gane the authority to expand eligibility for Medicaid to persons under the age of 65 if the family income is below 133% of the federal poverty level (Falkner, 2018). Also, health insurance companies cannot deny the health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions and keeping them at the same rate as for others. The plans must include coverage for 10 essential health benefits, such as outpatient/inpatient, ER, prescription drugs, labs, mental health and more (https://www.healthcare.org).

The objectives set in the SEC. 2402, of Affordable Care Act, Removal of Barriers to Providing Home and Community-Based Services, are aimed to the improvement of the community care. The Federal Human Services to promulgate regulations to ensure that all States develop service systems that are designed to – allocate resources, provide strategies, provide the support and coordination (https://www.hhs.gov).

As the whole health care system attention shifting towards outpatient and community care, following the ACA, the number of new community health centers expanding, more nursing jobs are opening up in this area of services. The demand for nurses, is growing nationwide in the rate that faster than average for all occupations, especially for nurses in home care, case management and community health care. Affordable Care Act authorizes funding for nursing development programs and loan repayment programs for nurses to help with preparation of the nursing workforce to meet the demand.

ACA’s grants are given to develop Nurse-Managed Health Clinic, which are nurse-managed, by advanced practice nurses, health clinic that provides comprehensive primary care or wellness services to underserved or vulnerable populations (https://www.hhs.gov).

The nurses’ role in the implementing this law is in achieving higher education, expanding the scope of practice, and extension the primary and community care to nurses while improving the quality of services at the lower cost