Timely Responses

Patients have the right to have their health care providers respond to them in a timely manner Pozgar, 2005). It is understandable that health care professionals have many patients to care for and they are often busy, but there should be standards in place to ensure health care professionals are not ignoring the concerns of patients. This is important to remember when reading the following case.

There was a case in which a patient expressed frustration with how she was treated during a visit with a new physician. She consulted with this physician because she thought they would have an answer to the questions she had regarding her illness (Pozgar, 2005). She expressed that she was initially seen by a medical student who wrote her history down on a sticky pad and the physician only consulted with her for about 10 minutes. After the consultation, the doctor was supposed to follow up with her which he never did. She wrote him a letter stating this information which he never responded to.

The physician in this case did not respect the rights of the patient. He did not provide a timely response and did not provide compassionate care. Ignoring the patient demonstrated the physician did not care about the needs of the patient. The patients want to feel as if their needs are taken care of and because this patient was going to this physician because she had extreme medical conditions, the physician’s help was needed.

If the physician did not know that was wrong with the patient or understand the patient’s condition, this should have been expressed. Therefore the patient could have consulted with another physician versus waiting for a response from this doctor.

The doctor did not commit themselves to the patient which is an ethical principle health care providers must always remember to do. Additionally, they did not respect the needs of the patient. These are a couple of the ethical issues that were demonstrated in this case.

As a health care administrator it is always important to ensure health care providers are following up with patients. If the physician was not able to promptly respond to the patient, they could have had another clinician follow up with the patient. The health care administrator could have addressed the patient in this case and apologized for how the patient was treated, even if the doctor still chose not to respond, it would have made the patient feel more comfortable that someone respond to their needs. Not responding could have also put the patient’s health in jeopardy, which could have created more issues for the health care provider and administration.

Reference

Pozgar, George. (2005). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals. Jones & Bartlett Pub.