You wake up one morning and feel a lump in your armpit. You’ve been noticing that you’re more tired than usual over the past couple months. You decide to seek out the services of your physician to address your concerns. You find your way to the doctor’s office and you have a conversation with your physician. He feels your lump and describes the several possibilities of what the lump may be caused by. He prescribes blood work and some other tests to determine the nature of your problem and to follow up with him in 3 weeks. Three weeks later you revisit your physician and he tells you that you have a serious form of cancer and that he recommends that you immediately begin chemotherapy. He provides you with some prescriptions for nausea and …show more content…
Well functioning markets require that both the “buyer” and the “seller” have adequate information to make decisions, leading to market equilibrium or enforcement of the market. When one party has an informational advantage, they can exploit the other leading to market failure potentially caused by supplier-induced demand. This can remove the independence of supply and demand. We know that the problem of asymmetric information exists in the Canadian healthcare system, but to what extent is it detrimental to consumer sovereignty? Do we routinely observe supplier-induced demand by physicians that impact the ability of healthcare consumers to make informed decisions or do we have enough policy and regulation in place that limits impact of asymmetric information, ensuring that health services are recommended based on evidence? Lastly, should policy be promoting increased consumer sovereignty by placing more onus on consumers to make appropriate healthcare decisions and if so, how? Some may argue that “consumers” or “patients” have limited sovereignty or autonomy to make their own decisions when it comes to their healthcare. This is often very true, especially in situations where patients are in situations of life or death, or otherwise do not have the capacity to make a decision. In these cases the patient has no say in the services they receive. In other situations there is an
The introduction of patient autonomy was a progressive and beneficial improvement to the operation of the health care field. The concept of patient autonomy was designed to protect patients from making decisions that would harm them. This concept ensures that patients are not forced by medical professionals to make life altering decisions. This clause also protects healthcare professionals from mal practice if their recommended health care plan does not go as planned. Patient autonomy should be considered as the central value in medical decision making as it introduces and enforces the concepts pf competency, shared decision making, and patient compliancy with healthy lifestyle recommendations.
Autonomy includes three primary conditions: (1) liberty (independence from controlling influences), (2) agency (capacity for intentional action), and (3) understanding (through informed consent) (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 100). According to Beauchamp & Childress (2009) to respect autonomous agents, one must acknowledge their right to hold views, to make choices, and to take actions based on their personal values and beliefs (p. 103). Respect for autonomy implies thaturges caregivers to respect theassist a patient in achieving? Heed? the autonomous choices of their patients. From there, patients can act intentionally and with full understanding when evaluating medical treatment modalities. Autonomy also includes a set of rules, one of which requires that providers honor patient decision-making rights by providing the truth, also known as veracity (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 103). In this case, several facets of the principle of respecting autonomy, specifically veracity, informed
In his essay, The Refutation of Medical Paternalism, Alan Goldman states his argument against a strong doctor-patient role differentiation, in which the doctor may act against a patients’ immediate will in order to carry treatment in the patients’ best interest. Goldman frames his entire argument around the single assumption that a person’s freedom to decide his future is the most important and fundamental right as he claims “the autonomous individual is the source of those other goods he enjoys, and so is not to be sacrificed for the sake of them.”[1] He claims that the majority of people would agree that they are the best judges of their own self-interest
Although there are several debates against this view point, it is not up to anyone else to make decisions of the ill and infirm. As such it should be recognized that “patients have a right to make
Patient’s decisions may sometimes be affected by various factors i.e. Their surroundings, they are often vulnerable and out of their normal environment. A conventional health care setting may be in a hospital environment where patients are most likely feel sensitive and insecure. Matiti and Trorey (2008:17) conducted interviews involving 102 patients in 3 different hospitals across the United Kingdom, over a period of 18 months. The purpose of these encounters was to annotate what was being said and also the fundamental meaning of how patients believed that their dignity was being put in jeopardy. One of the key aspects of patient dignity is making choices. Whilst conducting these interviews Matiti and Trorey (2008:17) discovered that despite the fact that patients accepted the loss of a little independence within the hospital surroundings, they wanted the freedom to participate in the decisions about their healthcare. Patients’ understanding in terms of choice, authority or participation in care and autonomy varied extensively. A number of patients were grateful that they were given the option to make decisions and that these were acted upon. On the contrary others considered that their right to making choices was contradicted and often their
The idea of consumer-directed care was mentioned by Krugman & Wells (2006) however, the authors stated that although there was a reduction in the amount of medical care used, there was no rational thought driving the patient’s decisions concerning good or bad care. While this may be true Giancola (2013), argued for the system to work properly employers involved in this type of health coverage must ensure employees selecting it are fully informed on the program and the responsibilities of using the program. While this may help with health care costs the employer would have to invest a substantial amount of time to ensure their employees
Today is the day: You are at the doctor’s office for your annual 6 month checkup. You feel fine, and everything in life is perfect. The doctor comes in with a stack of lab reports from your blood tests. You’re expecting news about how impressive your cholesterol is, and how healthy and fit you are. Unfortunately the doctor has to deliver different news today. Stage 4 terminal cancer, which has already spread to the bones. You realize that not only has your day been ruined, but potentially your life. You ask yourself, how much time do I have left? What do I need to do for treatment? How will I afford this? Unfortunately, this is not just a drawn up imagination for the millions of people diagnosed with cancer and other life threatening and life altering diseases around the world every year.
Every day new technologies emerge with solutions to biological and medical issues. These solutions often involve social issues, and people are faced with decisions, for example, regarding reproductive rights, fetal stem cell research, and confidentiality with sensitive medical records. The impact of rising costs on the laws and the ethics of health care delivery the rising costs, both of health care insurance and of medical treatment in general, can lead to questions concerning access to health care services and the allocation of medical treatment. For example, should everyone, regardless of age or lifestyle, have the same access to scarce medical commodities such as transplant organs or highly expensive drugs? In today’s society, medical treatment and decisions surrounding health care have become complex. It is therefore important to be knowledgeable and aware of the issues and the laws that govern patient care. In order to understand medical law and ethics, it is helpful to understand the differences between laws and ethics. A law is defined as a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Governments enact laws to keep society running smoothly and to control behavior that could threaten public safety. Ethics is considered a standard of behavior and a concept of right and wrong beyond what the
Debates about patients and their "right to die" have be argued. They should get to decide which treatments and medicines they take depending on their salary rate and whether or not they're allergic
Malone and Hinman quoted Justice Cardozo in Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital: “Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body,” exemplifying that anyone who is able to make decisions for themselves has a right to do so. However, the health care industry is more concerned with the general health of the public instead of an individual’s beliefs which causes an ethical dilemma.
The myths on patients’ rights for health is that rights are contained within the national health system,
The conflict between Jim and his supervisor is that Jim wants to help the customer and make them aware of the flaws of the stereos before they purchase them. But his supervisor does not allow Jim to inform the customers of his knowledge since they can find this information in the consumer report. The conflict is over moral principles due to the fact that Jim feels morally obligated to inform customers of his knowledge, he feels guilty when he does not. Jim needs to understand when paternalism ends and consumer autonomy begins. Paternalism ends when Jim is helping the customer find what they’re looking for and what fits the customer’s needs. Consumer autonomy takes care of the smaller details in which the customer themselves needs to be aware
Another influence on consumerism is society’s increasing mobility (Hone, 2007). Historically, patients have been dedicated to one heath care provider. It is uncommon for people to reside in one town for an entire lifetime today. There are many factors that may cause a patient to change physicians. The provider may change to a location that is not convenient for patient. Additionally, younger people seem to have less respect for provider’s older people which may cause them to change providers for virtually any reason. Furthermore, people are increasingly mobile and have more information than in previous years. This factor causes people to be less committed to staying with the same provider. The economy drives health care consumerism as well. Patients are reluctant to see providers outside of their insurer’s network because of the costs associated with the visit. Likewise physicians tend to refer within their network of
Why is this the conviction of many of us? This is because the seller always knows a lot of information about his goods more than the buyer knows. The seller knows a lot more about his goods' quality and their potential problem while the buyer doesn't know a lot of this information. This phenomena in the economic world is called asymmetric information. George A. Akerlof, an economist and professor at the university of California wrote a research paper in 1970 titled by the market of lemons. Akerlof's paper is one of the most important contributions on asymmetric information. in this simple research, I am going to discuss this thesis in the light of Akerlof's paper.
Based on the above, consumer sovereignty in healthcare would imply that society benefits at large when healthcare providers and organizations compete to develop high quality products and