Max
09-14-2005, 05:32 PM
Legal, Ethical Implications of Patients Paying for More of Their Medical Costs
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Medical News Keywords
ETHICS COSTS HEALTH CARE LAW Contact Information
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With patients being required to pay more of their medical costs, a new study will look at how this added responsibility affects the care that patients receive and what the implications are for health care law and medical ethics.
Newswise — With patients being required to pay more of their medical costs, a new study will look at how this added responsibility affects the care that patients receive and what the implications are for health care law and medical ethics.
Patients are becoming the primary decision-makers on spending for medical care, according to Mark A. Hall, J.D. at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
“This change fundamentally alters the doctor-patient relationship,” said Hall, professor of law and public health sciences. “These developments require patients and doctors to confront the costs of different treatment options much more explicitly than when insurance covered virtually everything.”
Doctors and patients used to assume that insurance would pay, so their conversations focused on the medical risks and benefits of treatment options and not on what they cost. Not any more.
With a $275,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) under its Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research program, Hall and Carl Schneider, J.D. of the University of Michigan School of Law, will study the impact of the shift in financial responsibility on health care law and medical ethics.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/514510/
Libraries
Medical News Keywords
ETHICS COSTS HEALTH CARE LAW Contact Information
Available for logged-in reporters onlyDescription
With patients being required to pay more of their medical costs, a new study will look at how this added responsibility affects the care that patients receive and what the implications are for health care law and medical ethics.
Newswise — With patients being required to pay more of their medical costs, a new study will look at how this added responsibility affects the care that patients receive and what the implications are for health care law and medical ethics.
Patients are becoming the primary decision-makers on spending for medical care, according to Mark A. Hall, J.D. at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
“This change fundamentally alters the doctor-patient relationship,” said Hall, professor of law and public health sciences. “These developments require patients and doctors to confront the costs of different treatment options much more explicitly than when insurance covered virtually everything.”
Doctors and patients used to assume that insurance would pay, so their conversations focused on the medical risks and benefits of treatment options and not on what they cost. Not any more.
With a $275,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) under its Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research program, Hall and Carl Schneider, J.D. of the University of Michigan School of Law, will study the impact of the shift in financial responsibility on health care law and medical ethics.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/514510/