MDs
Willing to Lie to Get Insurance Coverage
In
two related articles the theme of doctors lying is the top issue.
On the front page of the October 25th 1999 issue of the
USA Today newspaper was the headline, “Doctors say they would lie to get insurers to pay.” Also
on the front of the American Medical News was the title, “New
Study confirms: Doctors willing to lie for coverage.”
These
strong condemning statements were based on a study of 169 internists where
57.7% sanctioned the use of deception as justification of getting
insurance companies to pay. The
percentages varied depending on the severity of the patient condition.
In
addition to the above study a group of doctors were polled in a recent
Kaiser Family Foundation / Harvard University School of Public Health
survey. In this survey 48%
admitted to exaggerating the severity of some patients conditions in the
past two years.
In
still another survey presented by the AMA Institute for Ethics at the
Association for Health Service Research annual meeting it was disclosed
that 39% of MDs had used deception.
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