Do Healthcare Providers Practice Total Honesty?

A personal experience with a healthcare provider's dishonesty-- not once, but twice, in one visit and caused a lot of unnecessary suffering.  I will think twice before returning for medical care from her. She broke the provider-patient relationship. This prompted me to research the topic and post the results. Sadly, dishonesty in healthcare is a  negative trend for more than one reason. Lying to patients can lead to serious results for them as well as for the physicians and other healthcare providers in the long run.

In the healthcare setting, the patient-provider relationship is key. When trust is broken, the patient will find another doctor who will tell the truth.  In the end the provider loses income because patient satisfaction is a great way to advertise, but distrust will also spread through word of mouth. Negative advertising affects your practice more than you may think!


A survey published this week in the journal "Health Affairs" reflects this complex relationship. Lisa Iezzoni and her colleagues surveyed 1,891 physicians nationwide about how honest they are with their patients regarding medical mistakes and a patient's prognosis. 

Results:

• Although two-thirds of doctors agree they should share serious medical errors with their patients, one-third did not completely agree. Nearly two-fifths of the respondents said they did not disclose their financial relationships with drug and device companies.

•  And more than 55% of physicians said they often or sometimes described a patient's prognosis in a more positive manner than the facts might support. 

That is a lot of dishonesty going on! Why would they do it?

• Medical errors can be due to negligence, but they are more often a failure to analyze data properly. They are forced to see so many patients back to back with little down time to research properly and study cases as they should. They are performance driven. The more patients they see in a day, the better the finances at the end of the day. This is a false security because if their office staff is not filing claims properly, collecting on old claims and sending patient statements in a timely fashion, they are making less money than they think they are.

• Fear of litigation. In this society of suit happy clients, providers are less likely to admit to their mistakes. Nobody wants sued!

• Discomfort of admitting mistakes is more commonly the reason for not coming forward. They want to be perceived as having all of the answers because patients want answers that they may not know, so in the time crunch of trying to race to the  next client, they would rather be dishonest or make something up than follow through with the correct answer.

• Sometimes the truth is not good news and they hesitate to tell the truth because the patient may not be able to emotionally handle the news that they have to tell.

"Not telling the truth in the doctor-patient relationship requires special attention because patients today, more than ever, experience serious harm if they are lied to."

So, let's sum this up. If a provider lies to a patient, they will eventually lose:

• clients
• income
• credibility
• patient-doctor trust

Tell the truth and you will gain all of these mentioned above and more. Your reputation as a healthcare provider will stand out in the marketplace.

Thanks for reading.

Donna McHugh, CMRS

Resources:

1. http://www.uchile.cl/portal/investigacion/centro-interdisciplinario-de-estudios-en-bioetica/publicaciones/76983/honesty-in-medicine-should-doctors-tell-the-truth

2.http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2012/04/medical-care-honesty-essential.html

3.http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/11/health/dishonest-doctors-survey-brawley