Hospital Ethical Dilemma

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Introduction
When a patient lacks adequate health insurance, their financial circumstance becomes tightly entangled with medical contemplations in the clinical and operational decision making process. Is it ethical to deny those in need of healthcare to care merely based on their ability to afford healthcare? Is it ethical for hospitals and providers to bend billing and reimbursement rules and lower standards in order to provide free care to the indigent population? While at face value, it may seem that the hospital has a “clear-cut” ethical responsibility to offer free, or reduced-cost care for medically necessary procedures, this ethical issue brings about much debate. Hospitals responses to this ethical dilemma impacts the quality of care, …show more content…

There is the health of the greater community to consider. Hospitals, contrary to how they are normally perceived, are businesses. Businesses that operate by the beloved quote of “No margin no mission”. While making a profit is not the “true concern” for the hospital and providers, a medical professional or institution cannot provide free care to everyone in the community. A hospital can lose a great amount of money through providing care for those who cannot afford it, which will lead to its bankruptcy. Allowing a hospital to operate in a way that risks its continuing existence not only threatens to put many out of employment, it threatens the health of everyone in the community being served. For these reasons it is unreasonable to think that the hospital is acting unethically when it refuses treatment to those who can 't pay (Welter, …show more content…

My stance is in support of the obligation to provide free care. Hospitals and providers must make extremely difficult decisions and evaluate patients on a case-by-case basis but when a circumstance is beyond the patient’s control and the treatment can dramatically improve a patient’s wellbeing, it is unethical to deny a patient free care (Welter, 2009). Theories of distributive justice, such as utilitarianism and egalitarianism, have emphasized the importance of applying decision-making principals uniformly and consistently (Welner,

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