Analyze the effects of specific legislation on health care facilities, health plans, communities, and patients.

By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assignment criteria:

• Competency 2: Evaluate significant federal and state legislation that affects the scope of, access to, availability of, and reimbursement for health care services.
  • Analyze the effects of specific legislation on health care facilities, health plans, communities, and patients.
• Competency 3: Analyze the effects of values and assumptions inherent in the changing priorities in health planning and resource allocation.
  • Determine the influence of values and assumptions in setting health care priorities and allocating resources.
• Competency 4: Evaluate the combined effects of social, economic, ethical, legal, and political forces on health care.
  • Analyze the effects of social, economic, ethical, legal, and political forces on health care.
• Competency 5: Recommend possible initiatives available to address current gaps in health care policy.
  • Determine the nature and extent of current health care policy gaps.
• Competency 6: Communicate effectively, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with applicable organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.
  • Support main points, arguments, and conclusions with credible evidence from peer-reviewed sources.

Scenario

Over the last two weeks, you have spent your time analyzing the data and information that you gathered during your literature review. Your supervisor in the health policy think tank is pleased with your literature review and has asked you to move forward with your analysis, considering various perspectives.

The think tank serves multiple health care organizations and policy makers. Health care organizational leadership will depend on your analysis to help them determine strategic, legally compliant measures and lobby policy makers for needed change. You must develop a solid factual analysis to support policy makers in evidence-based policy making.

Consider topics such as painful versus painless cost controls and reimbursement models or quality initiatives that could be improved as indicated by your analysis.

Instructions

Conduct an in-depth analysis that answers the research question that you posed in Unit 3.

Analyze your findings from the literature:

• What were the research findings?
• What do the findings mean to you?
• What is your own perspective on the legislation and scholarly support for your analysis?
  • Do not simply copy information from the literature or agree with a single source.
• How would you answer your research question?
  • You may also wish to restate your research question based on your analysis.

Document Format and Length

• Consider adding appropriate headings to this section to help delineate your thoughts. No two papers will require the same headings, as each piece of legislation is different.
• Your analysis and answer to your research question should be 3–5 pages in length.

Supporting Evidence

Cite at least 10 sources from the literature review you completed in Unit 5 and add 3–5 credible sources from peer-reviewed journals or professional industry publications to support your analysis.

Evaluation

The following requirements correspond to the scoring guide criteria, so be sure to address each point. Read the performance-level descriptions for each criterion to see how your work will be assessed.

• Analyze the effects of social, economic, ethical, legal, and political forces on health care.
  • What evidence supports your analysis?
• Determine the influence of values and assumptions in setting health care priorities and allocating resources.
  • Are there areas of uncertainty or ambiguity reflected in the literature?
  • What evidence supports your conclusions?
• Determine the nature and extent of current gaps in health care policy.
  • Is there a general consensus on this issue or key points of disagreement?
  • What evidence supports your assertions and conclusions?
• Analyze the effects of the legislation you have chosen to investigate on health care facilities, health plans, communities, and patients.
  • Consider the scope of services, access, availability, and reimbursement.
  • Answer your research question.
• Support main points, arguments, and conclusions with credible evidence from peer-reviewed sources.
  • Be sure to apply correct APA formatting to source citations and references.

What parametric and nonparametric statistical tests can you use to obtain the information you need? Explain.

1. Imagine you are a state-level health policy maker interested in health care access. You want to identify geographic areas and ethnic communities that are underserved to be able to correct problems and ensure fair access. You can only use archival data for your study. What data do you need for your study? What variables will you use? Do you expect any difficulties in obtaining those data? Why or why not? What kind of design would you use? Why? What parametric and nonparametric statistical tests can you use to obtain the information you need? Explain.

2. Now, imagine you are the CEO of a large hospital. You are interested in reducing turnover among nurses. You wish to find out to what extent nurses’ turnover intention is related to their overall job satisfaction, their average number of hours worked per week and their level of professional stress. You plan a correlational study, administer an anonymous survey, and collect interval data for all four variables. What parametric and nonparametric statistical tests can you use to analyze the data?

Discuss how the policy balances employee and employer rights.

 Prepare a workplace policy and provide a written rationale for your policy that presents a thorough analysis using strong argument and evidence, choose one of the common workplace torts (Defamation). Prepare a detailed and specific policy for your employer that balances both the employer’s and employees’ rights. This policy must be no longer than one page in length. Next, write a two-page rationale for your policy in which you include the following:

• Explain the foundation and necessity of the policy,
• Discuss how the policy balances employee and employer rights.
• Offer evidence of your state and/or federal laws that support or relate to your policy.

 Total of three pages

Do you think that it is ethical for a company to change auditors if there is a difference in opinion on how accounting issues should be handled? Why or why not?

Opinion Shopping

“We have had Paige & Gentry as our auditors for many years, haven’t we, Jane? They have been here since I became president two years ago.” “Yes, Bob, I have been the CFO for seven years, and they were here before I came. Why do you ask?” “Well, they were really tough on us during the recent discussions when we were finalizing our year-end audited statements—not at all like I was used to at my last company. When we asked for a little latitude, our auditors were usually pretty obliging. Frankly, I’m a little worried.” “Why, Bob, we had nothing to hide?”

“That’s true, Jane, but let’s look ahead. We’re going to have difficulty making our forecast this year, and our bonuses are on the line. Remember, we renegotiated our salary/bonus package to give us a chance at higher incentives, and we have to be careful.”

“Looking ahead, we’ve got a problem with obsolete inventory that’s sure to come to require discussion for a second year in a row. We’ve got the warranty problem with the electrical harness on the mid-range machine, which is going to cost us a bundle, but we want to spread the impact over the next three years when the customers dis-cover the problem and we have to fix it up. And don’t forget the contaminated waste.

spill we just had—how much is that going to cost to clean up, if we ever get caught?”

“These are potentially big-ticket items. Bill Paige, the guy who is in charge of our audit, is not going to let these go by. He said the inventory problem was almost material this year, and we had to argue really hard. You are a qualified accountant; how can we handle this?”

“Well, Bob, we could have some informal discussions with other auditors—maybe even the ones at your old company—to see how they would handle issues like these. The word will get around to Bill, and he may be more accommodating in the future and will probably shave his proposed audit fee for next year when he meets with our Audit Committee next month. If you really wanted to play hardball, we could talk the Audit Committee into calling for tenders from new auditors. After all this time, it’s logical to check out the market anyway. We would have advance discussions during which we would sound them out on how they would assess materiality in our company’s case. Our audit fee in getting pretty large—almost $50,000 this year—so some big firms will be really interested.”

“Jane let’s play hardball. Get a list of audit firms together for the tender process, and I will approach the Audit Committee. Be sure to list some small firms, including Webster & Co., the firm auditing my old company.”

Questions 1. Who are the major stakeholders involved in this situation?

2. What are the ethical issues involved?

3. Is this situation unethical? Why and why not?

4. What should Jane do if Webster & Co. looks like the choice the Audit Committee will make and recommend to the board of directors?

After reviewing the case study, consider the following questions in your report.

Who are the major shareholders in this situation?

Do you think that it is ethical for a company to change auditors if there is a difference in opinion on how accounting issues should be handled? Why or why not?

What actions should Jane take if there is a change in auditors?

1000 words

Discuss why human relations skills are necessary in your future workplace.

Discuss why human relations skills are necessary in your future workplace.

Exercise Instructions:  You are required to submit a 2-Page (Title Page and Content Page), APA formatted paper with substantial content. Substantial content requires staying on topic and fully addresses the assignment in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner. The deliverable length of your posting responses must be at least 2-pages, (Title Page and Content Page) APA format.

Exercises must be the students original thoughts based on the topics from the “Open Educational Resource” (OER) Course Textbook and/or other referenced sources.  Direct quotes from references must be less than 20 words.  Please review for sentence structure, grammar and punctuation errors.  Plagiarized submissions may result in a “0” for the submission.  

Late submissions will be deducted 5 points.

All assignment(s) derive from the OER Textbook.  For academic purposes, at least 1 APA formatted reference is required pertaining to the topic(s).

Suggest one key strategy that managers may use to combat workplace stress productively in today’s work environment based on research

Suggest one key strategy that managers may use to combat workplace stress productively in today’s work environment based on research you conducted this week. Provide support for your strategy.

What is the net advantage to leasing (NAL)?

Lewis Securities Inc. has decided to acquire a new market data and quotation system for its Richmond home office. The system receives current market prices and other information from several online data services and then either displays the information on a screen or stores it for later retrieval by the firm’s brokers. The system also permits customers to call up current quotes on terminals in the lobby.

The equipment costs $1,000,000 and, if it were purchased, Lewis could obtain a term loan for the full purchase price at a 10% interest rate. Although the equipment has a 6-year useful life, it is classified as a special-purpose computer and therefore falls into the MACRS 3-year class. If the system were purchased, a 4-year maintenance contract could be obtained at a cost of $20,000 per year, payable at the beginning of each year. The equipment would be sold after 4 years, and the best estimate of its residual value is $200,000. However, because real-time display system technology is changing rapidly, the actual residual value is uncertain.

As an alternative to the borrow-and-buy plan, the equipment manufacturer informed Lewis that Consolidated Leasing would be willing to write a 4-year guideline lease on the equipment, including maintenance, for payments of $260,000 at the beginning of each year. Lewis’s marginal federal-plus-state tax rate is 25%. You have been asked to analyze the lease-versus-purchase decision and, in the process, to answer the following questions.

A. (1) Who are the two parties to a lease transaction?

(2) What are the four primary types of leases, and what are their characteristics?

(3) How are leases classified for tax purposes?

(4) What effect does leasing have on a firm’s balance sheet?

(5) What effect does leasing have on a firm’s capital structure?

B. (1) What is the present value of owning the equipment? (Hint: Set up a time line that shows the net cash flows over the period t = 0 to t = 4, and then find the PV of these net cash flows, or the PV of owning.)

(2) What is the discount rate for the cash flows of owning?

C. What is Lewis’s present value of leasing the equipment? (Hint: Again, construct a time line.)

D. What is the net advantage to leasing (NAL)? Does your analysis indicate that Lewis should buy or lease the equipment? Explain.

E. Now assume that the equipment’s residual value could be as low as $0 or as high as $400,000, but $200,000 is the expected value. Because the residual value is riskier than the other relevant cash flows, this differential risk should be incorporated into the analysis. Describe how this could be accomplished. (No calculations are necessary, but explain how you would modify the analysis if calculations were required.) What effect would the residual value’s increased uncertainty have on Lewis’ lease-versus-purchase decision?

F. The lessee compares the present value of owning the equipment with the present value of leasing it. Now put yourself in the lessor’s shoes. In a few sentences, how should you analyze the decision to write or not to write the lease?

Describe reasonable accommodation in your own words.

Describe reasonable accommodation in your own words. Then, choose a side in the Hardison case. Reflect on whether you agree or disagree with the court’s ruling in this case and why. Support your decision with applicable Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines. 

200 words

Explain the significance of small business in American history and the US economy.

Explain the significance of small business in American history and the US economy.

Exercise Instructions:  You are required to submit a 2-Page (Title Page and Content Page), APA formatted paper with substantial content. Substantial content requires staying on topic and fully addresses the assignment in a clear, concise, and meaningful manner. The deliverable length of your posting responses must be at least 2-pages, (Title Page and Content Page) APA format.

Exercises must be the students original thoughts based on the topics from the “Open Educational Resource” (OER) Course Textbook and/or other referenced sources.  Direct quotes from references must be less than 20 words.  Please review for sentence structure, grammar and punctuation errors.  Plagiarized submissions may result in a “0” for the submission.  

All assignment(s) derive from the OER Textbook.  For academic purposes, at least 1 APA formatted reference is required pertaining to the topic(s).

Is human development best characterized as a slow, gradual process, or is it best viewed as one of more abrupt change?

DISCUSSION: In this discussion, reflect upon and discuss ONE of the following questions:

· Q1: Is human development best characterized as a slow, gradual process, or is it best viewed as one of more abrupt change?

· Q2: Which developmental theory makes the most sense to you and why? Give examples from your own life or other personal observations on development. What evidences do you see that support this theory?