The New Republic. Nov 15, 1999. P 13.Is it ethical for doctors to bend the truth in order to get an insurance company to pay for medical treatment? According to this article, most doctors do. A survey has shown that 58% of doctors say that they would be willing to give an insurance company “deliberately deceptive documentation” to influence the company’s decision to approve surgery or other treatment for a life-threatening illness.These doctors believe that if they did not lie, their patients would receive sub-standard health care. Insurance companies are continually looking for ways to reduce their costs, and the most common way is to second-guess the doctors’ opinions or to approve the minimum treatments necessary. This has created a crisis in American medicine in which doctors feel they must be dishonest with the insurance companies in order to be the “good guy” to their patients. Does the end justify the mean? After all, these doctors seem to have a good reason for lying. They are trying to help someone, right? But it does not make it morally and ethically right. Lying is wrong, no matter what the reason is. Even though saving someone’s life seems to be a valid reason for bending the truth, it does not solve the problem. It is unethical for a doctor to lie, even to an insurance company. Although HMO’s and insurance companies need to be dealt with, lying is not the way to defeat them. You should not lie to “beat the system.” It solves nothing. Lying is a quick fix. It may work on a case-to-case basis, but health care reform is the only permanent solution.While we can condemn doctors for being untruthful, we also have to look at the flip side – HMO’s and other insurance companies who are trying to cut back costs, approving the least expensive treatments and sometimes denying those claims that have real merit. These companies do breed an envi...
