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The Death of A Patient: To Bill or Not to Bill, That is the Question
Here is a non-classical limerick (6 lines: aabbba) I wrote this evening:
Pre-Operative Billing
There was a surgeon so skilled
His patients were preoperatively billed
But one didn’t survive
To leave his surgery alive
And when the mail did arrive,
The wife was not thrilled.The ethical and professional issue is whether physicians should bill for services when the outcome is unfavorable or ends in the death of the patient. What factors should a doctor consider as appropriate for not billing for services rendered? ..Maurice.
2 Comments:
With thanks to Gerald S. Schatz, J.D.
..Maurice.
On the neoclassical side:
Hilaire Belloc,
"Henry King, Who Chewed Bits of String, and Was Early Cut Off in Dreadful Agonies,"
from Cautionary Tales (1907):
The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
'There is no Cure for this Disease.
Henry will very soon be dead.'
His parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
Cried 'Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires...'
With that, the Wretched Child expires.
I think it all depends on how the surgery/care was presented to the patient.
It's like lawyers. If a lawyer says you have a "slam dunk" case and then proceeds to bill you $30,000 then loses - NO - he should not get paid.
If a doctor says - "There is no risk at all. I do this everyday. It'll be so easy" and the patient dies or is disabled forever - then he should NOT get paid.
What about the story of the patient who was "incarcerated" in a hospital and held "hostage" by a hospital bureacracy even though the patient was insisting to go home(theangrypatient.com)?
They shouldn't have to pay nor should their insurance be billed. A similar thing happened to someone we know but they went to a lawyer for advice right away and the lawyer said they could leave at will. They did, with security following them down the hall.
So much depends upon the circumstances but I would certainly be hesitant to go to a doctor who submits a full bill after the doctor is the one who talked the patient and family into the surgery like it was no big deal, and then the patient dies. That takes nerve.
It used to be said out on the battlefields during the Vietnam War - once you are no longer afraid - you are a dead man.
I think once a doctor has become overconfident - the patient is a dead one.
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