Question

Based on the numerous requirements imposed on physicians prior to treating patients, does it surprise you to learn that physicians have the right to select the patients they wish to treat? Do you think this good health policy? Why or why not? Is there an ethical issue involved in addition to a health policy issue? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Doctors: are, by definition, medical experts. They can use their expertise to diagnose patient illnesses and recommend courses of treatment. However, patients must always remember that the decision to treat or not ultimately resides with them.

Refusing to Treat Patients: Physicians do not have unlimited discretion to refuse to accept a person as a new patient. Because much of medicine is involved with federal regulations, physicians cannot refuse to accept a person for ethnic, racial, or religious reasons. Some physicians refuse to treat attorneys.

Yes, a doctor can deny you medical treatment. Private doctors have some more leeway to deny treatment to patients than those in Medicare-compliant hospitals, but there are circumstances under which even doctors serving Medicare patients may choose not to serve a patient.

It's a common misconception in the U.S. that doctors are legally required to treat patients regardless of ability to pay or any other reason. In fact, as with everything else in the U.S. health care system, multiple variables are involved. Whether a doctor is legally obliged to treat you depends on location, type of facility, type of doctor, and the nature of the treatment. Doctors in private practice who do not receive public funding via programs like Medicare can deny pretty much anyone for pretty much any reason. They can choose to refuse customers like any other merchant or service provider, although they are still subject to federal anti-discrimination laws. Doctors who receive public funding are subject to different rules in different states. Many states, for instance, allow doctors to refuse treatment to a patient exhibiting threatening or dangerous behavior. Some grant doctors the right to refuse treatment on moral grounds. But some church affiliated hospitals use their code of ethics to justify refusing a treatment that challenges their religious beliefs even in the case of emergency treatment.

Right to select the patients they wish to treat, is a good health policy because:

1. In some emergency situations it may not be a possible for a doctor to handle the situation due lack of experience or

resources & they can refuse to treat so that patient could be taken somewhere else & timely management could be done.

2.  The patient’s failure to pay for the services.

3. The patient’s failure to appear for appointments or take prescribed medications,.

4. The patient’s seeking services that are morally or religiously objectionable to the physician.

5. The patient cannot be treated in a particular facility

6. Requires treatment of some specialist.

7. Requires different nature of treatment.

Is there an ethical issue involved in addition to a health policy issue? Why or why not?

Refusal to help means for most people declining to accept the duty to treat. The reasons for refusing to help and how we think about these reasons from an ethical and professional viewpoint are outlined by considering ethical principles, an historical perspective, the law, societal contracts, medicine as a moral enterprise, professional codes, a physician's personal beliefs, reasons for refusing to help and physician discretion. Refusing to help a patient is not consistent with the ethical principle of beneficence, the concept of the primacy of patient welfare or the obligation of the profession to care for the sick. However duty to treat should not be exploited by institutions or place physicians in circumstances that they consider morally, psychologically or physically unacceptable. Following the principle of distributive justice, physicians are obligated to participate in the public debate to ensure that all patients have their needs met by developing or improving health care systems and addressing the new ethical questions that are likely to be generated.