Reasons behind Doctors Overtreating Patients and How to avoid it
Did you ever find that doctors are providing you with too much of medical tests that aren’t necessary? The third leading cause of death in the United States is medical mistakes. Especially in the developed countries doctors are overtesting, overdiagnosis and overtreating a disease. For nonexistent or milder problem doctors sometimes provide wasteful medical care. Before going further first we should know what overtreatment actually is? Prescribing unnecessary medication or procedures for treating any disease, illness or injury is called overtreatment.
This can be described easily with an example if a patient has undergone nonessential surgery or is overexposed to radiation or X-rays or may be overtreated that do more harm than good. Furthermore, it may occur with holistic medicine or traditional western medicine as well.
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It is also true that there are some patients who demands for more prescriptions, tests and treatments from doctors. Half of the physicians complain that their patients want unnecessary tests. However, one of the fact remains true for doctors overtreating patients is the desire to make money. Some tests, over-prescribed medication or treatments may appear helpful but they are actually nothing but money.
Another reason is that the doctors often feel pressured to over-prescribe medications even if it isn’t helpful. Instead of prescribing medications doctors can also find other ways to reduce patient’s anxiety, depression and blood pressure. Some of the approaches can be healthy diets, meditation and exercise that can also improve overall health of a person. People always think that paying more attention to the health results in a better outcome but it is not always the case and can lead to create further
Dr. Atul Gawande’s article, “Overkill”, describes the harms of overtreatment and over testing to not only the patients, but the US health care system as well. He utilizes patient’s stories, his own personal stories, and expert analysis to inform the readers that the health care system is overdoing tests, over diagnosing, and performing procedures that are extremely expensive, but in the end does not improve the patient’s condition. Dr. Gawande’s argument is that the US health care system is engaging in expensive, unnecessary medical care when they should be adopting a slow medicine philosophy.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system is not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication.
...s mind, whether that is better pain treatment or a new doctor and if that doctor fails to satisfy those requests to the point of changing the patients mind then the doctor should grant the patients wish.
Patient dumping when a hospital capable of providing the essential medical care for a patient, but turns the patient away because of the patient 's failure to pay for services. Patient dumping is some steps taking by hospitals due to lack of financial ability of the patient either expelled or not provide the services he needs. Before some hospitals not even greeted before making sure that health care insurance was available or not. However, in 1986 The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to stop hospitals from turning away patients with emergency medical situations, even if they were uninsured. And some of who is suffering from patient dumping is the homeless. Because the majority does not have healthcare insurance, income or the ability to pay a certain amount of the treatment. . In the U.S., more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year.
Communicating with someone who has a life-altering illness is not an easy task. A person needs to have compassion, patience, and listening skills. I have seen firsthand how a caring healthcare provider and having an attitude of optimism can prolong a person’s life.
I will be relating the implication of developing critical thinking aptitudes in order to practice, safe nursing diagnostic and professional judgment in my daily nursing process. I will also converse the approaches and skills that are required to develop clinical thinking and safe clinical problem solving in the environment I work in. The main focus will be on the responsibilities and
A newly employed critical care nurse was just about to finish a 12 hour night shift when she realized she had one more patient to administer medication to. It was the busiest Friday night shift she has ever worked due to poor nurse-patient ratio, and the workload felt impossible. She gave her last patient the properly prescribed medication, but failed to notice that the physician hastily wrote an updated dosage for a high risk medication, Digoxin. The patient’s heart rate began to slow down and life-saving procedures had to be activated. Medication errors are “any preventable event that may cause, or lead, to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer
Before tort reform was passed in Texas, many doctors were being sued for medical malpractice and there was definite evidence of lawsuit abuse. According to The Heritage Foundation, doctors had become easy targets for medical malpractice lawsuits because there is no point in pursuing a lawsuit against someone who does not have the money. Doctors have the money and the insurance to potentially be able to satisfy a judgment. Over time, the amount of medical malpractice lawsuits have risen, which in turn has lead to medical malpractice insurance rates rising. With the cost of the insurance rising, many doctors retired early, left the business, or moved to new states. This in turn affected healthcare costs and other aspects for patients.
Cancer patients often wonder if going through treatments like chemotherapy and radiation are worth the risk of the side effects, in addition to the cancerous side effects. They feel that they can’t enjoy or relax in what a short amount of time they have left because they are bedridden from the nausea and pain that treatments put them through. Patients tell their loved ones to just let them die so long as they don’t have to go through any more pain. Those who are too old, are unable to recover from the effects, or are just too far in the grips of cancer, should refuse the more harsh treatments like chemo and radiation. On the positive side, refusing treatments after a certain point can save their families from the stress and cost of hospital bills. If caught early enough, patients can opt for safer and easier routes to getting rid of cancer like surgery or by doing a stem cell transplant.
Physical therapy is always full of surprises, from new advancements in technology to new and improved therapeutic techniques. Although there are fun games and new technology that physical therapists can do with patients, the main struggle for physical therapists is to motivate their patients to complete their therapy exercises both in the clinic and in the outside world. This problem is very frustrating because the doctors who work at the clinic constantly push patients to complete their therapy so that they can heal; however, when patients are stubborn and reluctant to their treatment, yet constantly complain of pain, doctors must spend more time convincing them to do the therapy rather than completing the therapy itself.
To start, many medical professionals are paid too much to make room for mistakes. To quote the article by Mark L Graber, “diagnostic errors are costly,” (Graber). Doctors are paid a lot of money.
Next, many citizens are unaware when it comes to their rights and what they may be entitled to. Many are unaware that if they cannot afford health insurance, their rights have being infringed upon. The “human right to health” means that everyone has the right to the best standard of physical and mental health, which includes access to all medical and health services, proper sanitation, healthy adequate food, healthy working conditions, and a clean environment.
A parent’s role in their child’s physical therapy with chronic physical disabilities has changed over the years. Back in the day parents weren’t involved at all in their child’s therapy, it was all done with the therapist in there office. They would tell the parent what was happening and how it’s improving, but the parent was never included during the process. Nowadays, parents play a huge role in their child’s physical therapy visits. The therapist now involves the parents in the room with explanations of different exercises and movements, and entails every step, so that they can do some of the same things at home.
Physicians are often paid on a fee for service basis (Shafrim, 2008). This means that each time a physician orders a test to be run, they are paid. This can result in physicians ordering unnecessary test and procedures for their own personal gain. This is not helping to diagnose the patients or improve their overall health. An increase in these test and procedures also cause insurance companies to raise premiums and deductibles.
As the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party, Peace and Freedom Party and American Independent Party all revolve around Americans today. Health care is a current and important issue among all political parties. Affordable health care has been a major controversy within some parties such as the Republican and American Independent Party. Other Parties such as the Democrat Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party and Peace and Freedom Party feel that affordable health care should be a right and not a privilege. With that being said, health care is an important determinant in the general physical and mental health and well-being of people around the world.