With the growth and development of managed care, several new ethical dilemmas and complexities are introduced. The relationship between the patient, payer, and provider is a complicated and severe process that may also change over time and face new challenges. There are three areas of managed care, including financial incentives, vulnerable populations, and quality of medical support that are common to have ethical problems. In this paper, I will discuss which moral concern that impacts managed care I consider the most serious.
To begin with, I consider the quality of care the most challenging concern of healthcare ethics. It is hard to disagree that this is one of the factors that may influence a person choosing a medical organization to go to. Since people need to pay a significant amount of money to stay or become healthy, they want to receive a high-quality service. Moreover, one of the purposes of the managed care plans’ creation is the improvement of the quality of medical support. All these factors prove the importance and seriousness of its high level.
Nevertheless, this area causes a severe ethical concern that negatively influences the outcomes of managed care. There are several issues identified to be related to the lack of access to specialists, physicians, and waiting times. Patients need to choose their specialists, get medical help right away, receive affordable medical assistance, and know that their health and comfort are medical workers’ primary responsibility and purpose. It depends on the quality of care whether ill people go to a doctor or prefer staying at home and treating themselves. Patients may not like getting limited in their options because of depend on providers in their network. They might not want their wait time to increase significantly if they need to see a primary care provider before other doctors. These all are issues related to the quality of medical support ethical concerns. In my opinion, unless this problem is solved once and for all, there is not much point in eliminating other obstacles. Without the high quality of care, health organizations and managed care cannot become perfect.