(Snippets from the frontline)
The morality of targeting ICU Medicare patients
Some hospitals target every Medicare patient admitted to the ICU pushing palliative and hospice care. The diagnosis doesn’t matter nor whether the patient will recover, only that the patient costs money.
This attitude is shameful yet condoned by many medical professionals. A blind eye is turned to these unscrupulous tactics, while the Hippocratic Oath and Nightingale Pledge are merely a vestige of the past.
Patient legal paperwork is scrutinized for errors, so if family members disagree with the hospital’s medical plan, the right to make medical decisions for their loved one can be snatched away.
Families are challenged at bedside attempting to sway them toward a “Palliative Care evaluation.” Tactics and words are used, sometimes falsely, when the level of family emotional distress is at its greatest.
If palliative care is accepted, the family is quickly urged to place the patient on hospice, which is end-of-life. The hospital has accomplished their goal of saving money, while the patient loses any attempt at recovery.
Who is at fault in this system: Medicare, hospital administrators, doctors, nurses?
Greed is the underlying factor: No heart, no empathy, no compassion.
When did we lose our morality?
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
This is the exact reason I wont become a nurse case manager or work in hospice… sadly. I tried it and felt like I was pressured into saying/doing things to which Nightingale’s pledge says the opposite.