Increasingly, HMO's (health maintenance organizations) find themselves wrestling with the moral implications of their allocation of resources. By what guideline–or guidelines–should they decide between investing in more preventive services and investing in more life-prolonging technology? Or ... How much of their money should they redirect from physical health to mental health?
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
In an analysis conducted for the committee, Eisenberg and Neighbors estimate that the annual costs of MEB disorders among young people totaled roughly $247 billion in 2007 (see Box 9-1). Demonstrating the effectiveness of interventions is necessary to establish a scientific basis for prevention approaches aimed at avoiding these costs. As outlined in this report, there is reason for optimism about the ability to successfully intervene in the lives of young people and prevent many negative outcomes. However, decisions about how to invest limited public resources must consider the cost of delivering the service and demonstrate that the benefits that can be expected from an intervention—both those that can be readily valued in dollars (e.g., increased productivity, decreased treatment costs) and those that cannot (e.g., alleviation of pain and suffering of both individuals and their families)—outweigh the costs that would be incurred in a real-world environment. As one example of the complexity of measuring costs, a serious mental disorder in a parent or a child has obvious and measurable financial costs associated with treatment and lost productivity. However, the disorder also often profoundly affects the overall functioning of the family in psychosocial ways that are devastatingly costly to the family but not readily susceptible to quantification, much less valuation in dollars and cents.