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The Affordable Care Act ( Aca )

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Pain is a condition that is determined and described by the person reporting it. There are several components to pain including the emotional, psychological, and physical aspects. Many health professionals struggle to understand this phenomenon and thereby insert their own perspectives into the pain assessment of patient reporting pain. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) (2010), also titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act H.R. 3590, was passed by Congress and signed into law on March 23, 2010 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), 2013). Hospital value based purchasing programs (VBP) were developed to align patient quality care and outcomes to the support initiatives from the ACA. A component of the VBP includes patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction is a self-reported response to questionnaire administered by a third party. Many hospitals utilize Press Ganey to administer the survey for the inpatient and outpatient patients. One component the survey includes patient’s self-reporting how well their pain was managed during their hospitalization. This measure of satisfaction can have an adverse effect on patient outcomes and increase opioid use in this setting. Patient satisfaction and pain management are both subjective however pain management while within scope of healthcare professionals should not be included in the patient satisfaction survey.
Patient Experience score accounts for 30% of the total value based performance score

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