Safety net hospital, non-profit hospital, and for-profit hospital.

Google the following terms — safety net hospital, non-profit hospital, and for-profit hospital. You will see that each has a different financial model. Now, define the following:

a) What is a “safety net” hospital? 

b) What is a non-profit hospital?

c) What is a for-profit hospital

2) How might a hospital’s marketing strategies (targeting more “profitable” patients) affect that “target market’s” medical decisions, i.e. would you choose a hospital if you knew its managers wanted you to choose it to treat YOUR CHILD, because you were fully insured and able to pay fees, thereby increasing profits?

3) What is the inherent conflict between a hospital’s mission to serve low income, uninsured people, and the goal of making a profit by attracting middle / high income patients with health insurance? Why won’t it work?

4) What is Medicare? (google, Wikipedia)

5) What is Medicaid? (google, Wikipedia)

6) What is Mass Health? (google, Wikipedia)

7) In this video, one of the experts states that he believes that the failure of hospitals is “an outgrowth of the failure of social policy and politics.”  What does he mean? Do you agree or not? (A simple yes / no answer will not suffice — WHY do you agree or not?)

8) What are “supplemental payments?”

9) Should hospitals operate like a for-profit business? What are the alternatives? Explain your answer. (20 points)