Doctors and nurses are increasingly unable to provide appropriate patient care as they care caught between the demands of administrators, insurance companies, and even patients’ families.
Surgeon Pauline Chen writes about the phenomenon in her latest column in the NY Times, where she describes cases where medical providers are unable to do what is ethically right.
The interests of the medical staff conflict with those of insurance companies and hospital administrators, and often times, patients end up the ultimate losers of such situations.
As Dr. Chen writes, “It is profoundly disheartening to haggle with disembodied voices over the phone over insurance approval for operations to remove cancers, to struggle to do everything that should be done for the rising numbers of patients a single doctor must see, and to follow the wishes of estranged relatives who swoop into the hospital during the last days of life and demand aggressive treatment.”
Well said.
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- Unable to provide proper patient care, emergency doctors are suing the state of California
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{ 3 comments }
Great quote. Was just thinking along those lines myself. Why is it someone behind a desk thinks they can tell what a patient needs better than the person in the room?
Trying being pulled out of a deep sleep to choose between a baby’s life and your career in your own hometown.
I chose the patient.
The rest is history. And nobody but nobody gives a crap.
The problem is that having M.D. after ones name does not reliably communicate to all that one is some sort of demigod who would never allow personal self-interest and the addictive powers of O.P.M. seduce him or her into abrogating their responsibility to allow the patient’s best interest to be the sole criterium of what services are provided or offered. Nor does having the label of “patient” relieve the rest of humanity from the moral hazard of insufficient attention to the value of services when paid by Other Peoples Money rather than their own labors.
As a physician, I resent having to deal with managed care. With shame, I must say that I have repeated observed behaviors among my colleagues that make it necessary. I must also confess, even while resenting it, that it is at least to some degree childish narcissism to feel entitled to sit with someone and conspire to spend someone elses money without them having a say.
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