Providers Firing Patients
The June 10th health section of the New York Times caught my eye with an interesting piece describing a pediatrician’s difficult decision to “fire” a patient because of the poor relationship between the provider and the patient’s mother. Clearly not a daily occurrence in the healthcare world, but it does happen and we all know many patients that have switched “fired” their own doctors and have obtained new ones.
In brief the article describes a teenage boy with mild asthma that is being brought to the provider’s office for care and the mother of the patient is continually attacking the provider verbally and is even hostile at times with her interactions. The provider initially dismisses the accounts as nothing more than a concerned mother but eventually after being subjected to this type of abuse regularly, the provider sends the mother a letter stating they were dropping her son from their practice. In essence the pediatrician was firing the patient to avoid seeing the mother anymore.
A difficult ethics issue for sure as the article points out. In my experience with healthcare I have seen this periodically but I don’t think the practice is common. Patients that are rude, obnoxious, and are not compliant with treatment recommendations should be shown the proverbial door by providers. The provider-patient relationship is a two-way street where a mutual exchange of questions, advice, concerns and ultimately a treatment plan is discussed and agreed upon. When that cannot happen the relationship becomes unproductive.
Patients that miss several appointments or don’t pay their bills as pointed out in the article are clearly not going to be held on by any healthcare provider, but when it comes to relationships it is another story. So the question remains, is it really O.K. to let patients go to seek healthcare elsewhere when the patient-provider relationship is so clearly strained? At what point can providers toss in the towel?
About the Author
Mike Pringle is the author of Healthcare Today where he offers commentary and insight regarding today’s healthcare issues. Additionally he provides regular commentary for Red Scrubs and editorial content for Future Healthcare. He has over 20 years of nursing experience working both domestically and internationally. Mike has a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and a Masters Degree in Public Administration with a Healthcare emphasis. He specializes in both Emergency and Critical Care Nursing. He currently works at Falmouth Hospital as a Shift Manager for the emergency department.
