Medical Doctors sanction lying for patients
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Survey: Physicians support deceiving insurers to get needed care
LOS ANGELES - If a doctor believes a patient needs medical care but the insurance company won’t cover it and the patient can’t afford the expense, should the physician lie to the insurer to secure payment? Many doctors polled in a new survey say yes.
Of 169 Internists from eight major markets around the country who responded to a confidential mailed survey, most said they supported deceiving a third-party payer if it meant a patient received warranted care, especially for serious conditions. However, their support for deception declined with the severity of the condition.
In addition, results showed that doctors working in areas with the highest penetration of managed care organizations, which are known to control the use of services, were more willing to deceive insurers than physicians working in areas with the lowest HMO presence.
The results aren’t surprising, according to study author Dr. Daniel P. Sulmasy, head of ethics at Saint Vincents Hospital and Medical Center in New York, adding that many doctors face "moral stress tests" on a daily basis.
"Physicians increasingly find themselves tempted to falsify their documents deliberately in order to secure for their patients services that would otherwise be denied," he said here Sunday at an American Medical Association science writers conference. "Physicians today are caught between competing moral obligations."
Source: MSNBC, Click here for entire article
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