Ethics in a Clinic Setting

I work in a health clinic, which for the time being I will just call it by the name Family Health, and there are several ethical issues I have noticed could come up. As a background, our office has several different marketing techniques including ads in the following areas:

• newspapers

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/

• Local Magazines



http://www.distinctlymontana.com/article/easy-eat-locally





• Radio stations
• We now have a website too!

The issue with developing ads, as I have found out from my assistant office manager, is not promising too much. For example, one of our slogans is similar to:

We see the entire family!

In all honesty, we should actually say:

We see the entire family, except those who are: on Medicare, Medicaid, and Workman's Comp.

It is not that we do not want to see these patients who have these insurance companies or positions, but we actually end up basically paying out more for our expenses then we are getting from the insurance companies.

Ethical Issue #1: One doctor believes that it is acceptable to accept an occassional patient who has one of the outlawed insurances because the patient is her friend. Is this ethical or fair?

Ethical Issue #2: A patient comes in to the office with some sort of serious injury. Can we refuse as a patient if he is bleeding all over the carpet due to the type of insurance he has?

Ethical Issue #3: One patient is allowed to have an outstanding balance of over $4000 and is still allowed to be seen in the office, since it is a friend of a doctor, but another patient with an outstanding balance of $30 is sent to collections. Is this ethical or fair?

As with every environment there are ethical dilemas in many different forms or situations. I know I run into several situations every day where I use my best judgement and advice from my managers in order to find an answer that makes everyone happy. However, not everyone has that ethical fallback.  Being an ethical company means making sure everyone from the bottom up understands what the company is expecting. When everyone works as a team and is one the same page, ethical decisions that are not in the best interest of the company can be avoided. We have been told by our patients that they trust our office, a trust customer is a happy customer!

http://terminalpodcast.org/2012/04/19/trust-consistent/