Potential Problems When Healthcare Professionals Accept Gifts from Patients

Examples of gifts and payments include but are not limited to: meals, travel and travel accommodations, tickets to

A medical office administrative assistance must know the importance of proper medical documentation,the legal aspects of documentation and the various medical laws, regulations, and acts; understand language and other communication barriers, proper billing and reimbursement procedures, workplace conflict and diversity; and know how to properly maintain patient ledger cards. Accurate medical documentation ensures the patient receives the proper treatment and aides in validating medical necessity. This documentation is not only critical to the patient but the facility as well because it ensures proper codes are assigned, clean claims are submitted, and allows the reimbursement process runs smoothly. Medical office administrative assistants must understand the imporatance in protecting patient privacy because they have an ethical and legal

his or her patients feel better. However, there are cases where a doctor can only do so much.

The American Medical Association (AMA) published a Code of Ethics for Physicians that includes a list of certain principles physicians should follow in order to be good physicians, practicing in an ethical fashion. This list, which was first adopted in June of 1957 and revised as recently as June of 2001, demonstrates some principles that are not universally accepted to be critical to the ethical practice of a physician. In particular, all physicians do not completely believe the claim that “A physician shall support access to medical care for all people” (Principles of Medical Ethics). Theorist, H. Tristam Engelhardt believes that the lack of access to care for some may be unfortunate, but it is not unfair and that this access does not need to be mandated, nor does believing it should be make you an ethical physician. In fact, Engelhardt supremely believes that by providing access of care to all, you will hurt certain patients that already have access to care, negating your function as a physician practicing beneficence. Engelhardt would retract this statement from the Principles of Ethics. However, this belief of and drive to implement access of care to all is critical to one’s job as a physician and it goes against core values of physicians to claim otherwise. Theorists such as Tom Beauchamp and Norman Daniels would agree that the universal access to health care is a critical component of the values physicians hold.

To argue the first premise, he appeals to common knowledge that doctors hold their occupations because they are more knowledgeable in a medical context on the options for improving health and longevity. With this in mind, he then establishes that individuals who consult physicians do so in order to prolong their life and improve their well-being. By establishing these foundational premises for paternalism in a medical context, Goldman can now argue that given a patient that is determined to be acting out of line with his true values and his actions might result in harm that is severe, certain, and irreversible, it is the physician’s professional to override the patients’ immediate rights in order to preserve that patients’ more long-term desires. But how can the physician determine whether the patient is acting in line with his true values in the case of withholding medical information from the patient?

The patient's idea of the physician is in contrast to the narcissistic patient's contempt, and disregard for the physician, who is keeping a sense of superiority over illness. Only the most senior physician in

I should also think about the timing of these gifts and the relationship with the owner. In this situation I would actually accept this gift. To me it seems like me and the owner has developed some sort of relationship outside of professional parameters. He knows of or maybe even has met my family. It is Christmas Eve and he took the time to think of my family and I, presenting us with a gift. It is a holiday and I do not see a difference between the owner giving me a gift on Christmas and a teacher getting a gift on teacher appreciation day. I would present him with a gift as well.

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do" (1). Ethics and its subsequent practice have been a very contentious issue in American society of late. Our current economic resulted almost entirely of excessive greed and unethical actions of key financial institutions. As a result of their lack of integrity, the entire world economy has subsequently suffered in a very severe manner. Many have lost their homes; even more have lost their retirement savings, while still others have lost their livelihoods. Such is the power of ethics and how its practice can have both positive and negative consequences on society as a whole. With all the attention placed on the financial community and in particular, Wall Street, many are often neglecting the unethical practices of the health care industry. I believe a very ubiquitous and widespread issue apparent within the health care industry is that of patient dumping. Throughout this document, I will provide the ethical considerations regarding patient dumping and methods in which to prevent the spread of its practice. In particular, I aim to highlight the practices and potential ethical threats to Health South Inc.

However a gift does not limit itself to only those boundaries. Some will hear O'Connor’s quote and agree that with gifts comes unspoken obligations to uphold. On the other hand, others will view O'Connor’s statement as vague and irrelevant. People can find qualifications for the claim “A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility” on

The Physician “dressed in red and blue cloth lined with taffeta and with silk (Chaucer 10),” which are types of clothing that represent wealth and money. The physician dressed in ways you would expect to see a typical wealthy doctor dressing. The Physician “especially loved gold (Chaucer 10),” and he was very blunt with the way he felt about money. He wore nice things and was always trying to get more money. The Physician would “help forecast the health and treatment of his clients (Lyons 6),” in the most beneficial way for him to get the most money. The Physician showed greediness by always looking for the most expensive diagnosis for the patient. “If they are very rich he orders twice the quantity for them as he does for the poor (Lyons 7),” because he was more willing to help those who could pay him in well in return. The Physician was indeed good at his job, but was also good at swindling his way to receive money. The Physician is an example of how in society, people dress to impress but even when they have nice things and enough is never

There were doctors in Colonial America. When a doctor visits a patient to check upon the sick person's health, their pay will be in anything but money such as chopped woods, vegetables, et cetera for the poor people. The poor people did not have money as stated in A Visit to a Colonial Times Doctor’s Office. They usually rely on their farming to feed their families and things such as money were scarce. Those who are of the contrary to the low income and the rural settings have better access to health and opportunities as written in Colonial Medicine (5). They can pay their doctor on the spot and can even request their choice of doctors. In modern America, a new change to the health care business is arriving. With the currently new healthcare, everyone shall be able to hopefully

Health care providers are obligated to provide for those entrusted in their care. To what extent do they meet this obligation? How might their obligation to others conflict with their obligation to themselves?

For instance, “Hispanic women are more likely to be dissatisfied if they feel they have been treated badly by providers and staff and if they do not trust doctors” (Guendelman, Wagner 118). If the patient does not feel a sense of hospitality and see a welcoming smile, it discourages the patient to visit the physician because they feel they are not getting the right medical attention, and tend to be sicker. In addition, “the sicker individual risk exposure to more insults, and this leads them to pull back from the health care system” (119). In a physician/ patient relationship there needs to be a balance between actually caring and giving your patients the attention and satisfaction that they deserve. Some physicians take advantage of their patient’s vulnerability of being sick by pushing them aside, and worrying more about the fastest way to make money. However, the physician then loses another patient because of greed.

Imagine you are injured or sick and have sought a doctor’s help. Although you trusted your doctor, something, something seemingly very in control of the doctor, went wrong. You are angry and confused, but also think of the commonality of medical malpractice. So, why do doctors, who are supposed to help, harm? Though many flaws influence it, malpractice can be, and often is unintentional. Most doctors aren’t trained to harm their patients. Inexperience and lack of medical discovery led to unintentional suffering of the patient. Personal flaws, like lack of willingness to abandon previous medical methods and shortcomings in communication also harm patients. Further reasons why doctors harm are socio-medical understandings that breed hate, prejudices stemming from a society’s belief about certain people, such as the medical practice under the Nazi regime. Additionally, displayed in the case of Ignác Semmelweis, judgement of one to oneself can be detrimental to any progress one’s ideas could make. We will examine these concepts through Jerome Groopman’s “Flesh-and-Blood Decision Making”, Sherwin Nuland’s The Doctors’ Plague and Barbara Bachrach’s “In the Name of Public Health”. Those who practice medicine are, unfortunately, unfree from the imperfections that plague all of humanity. Through these intimate and varied faults, doctors do harm.

It is evident through ancient writings that forms of healing were present as far back as is recorded. Medicine, healers and forms of payment seem to have played an important role in the past, like they do now. However, over the centuries changes have taken place. From the time of Galen in ancient Rome to the 14th and 15th centuries in England the relationships between doctors and patients have evolved, along with the way medicine is defined and practiced. Specifically I would like to focus on forms of payment and their effect on the doctor-patient relationship and how payment and the practice of medicine have changed over time. These changes led to a healer-patient relationship that was not as