Managed care organizations have in the recent past growingly become accustomed to the use of financial incentives, bonuses, and sanctions. Despite these techniques targeting cost savings and performance improvement, they may often lead to employee dissatisfaction, immoral behavior, low turnover, and jealously in the workplace. Therefore, these employees need to have guidelines to help them know when a cost-saving decision is good and or bad.
Employees in such organizations need to be regulated as it is the patients who in most cases will end up in a disadvantaged position. Primarily, regulations should provide that focus on intrinsic motivation wherein tasks are assigned with the aim of skill development and proper decision-making to allow the building of proper interpersonal connections (Gotowiec & Cantor-Graae, 2017). Additionally, the employees should be encouraged to practice mastery, autonomy, and purpose in their duties as this supports motivation from within as opposed to external factors. Nevertheless, these tools should be meant for uninteresting tasks and be delivered in minimal quantities to avoid negative impacts.
With these guidelines, employees should be able to tell when cost-saving decisions interfere with patient care. Nonetheless, whenever the employee is not confident in the decision made and he or she feels incompetent as a result of it, it should be a warning sign that it is interfering with patient care (Gotowiec & Cantor-Graae, 2017). Additionally, the employee should evaluate the consequence of that decision and in case it impedes on patient’s wellbeing and quality of life, then it should be considered wrong.
Consequently, even in budgeting, nurses should remain conscious of their fiscal responsibility to patients. Nurses have a role to ensure that health benefits are maximized within the most cost-efficient resource combination (Gotowiec & Cantor-Graae, 2017). This mix does not relate to the manner of patient compensation for the services or insurance. However, it focuses on their duty to ensure that they are fair and just to all patients without being self-centered.
Nonetheless, employees in managed care organizations using financial incentives, bonuses, and sanctions need to be sensitized on the importance of putting client interest first. With this, they will be able to be motivated intrinsically instead of depending on these tools for motivation which can be misleading. Moreover, they must ensure that even when they get an opportunity to enrich themselves, such decisions should often be based on fair and just care to all.
Reference
Gotowiec, S., & Cantor-Graae, E. (2017). The burden of choice: A qualitative study of healthcare professionals’ reactions to ethical challenges in humanitarian crises. Journal of International Humanitarian Action, 2(1), 10-15. Web.