HEALTHCARE

Patient Rights in a HealthCare System

Patient Rights in a HealthCare System

Introduction

Healthcare delivery refers to the ways in which healthcare services are supplied to individuals who need or desire them. Although the actual process by which healthcare is delivered varies among countries, it is safe to say that in most countries, delivering healthcare is a complex process that requires participation and cooperation among many different people and organizations. This complexity means that disputes about the best ways to deliver services are bound to arise, particularly in a country such as the United States that does not have a national system of healthcare but relies on a combination of private, public, and charitable programs. Although any system of healthcare delivery will have its own issues, much of this article focuses on comparisons between the U.K. method of healthcare delivery and the more nationalized or universal systems common in most of the rest of the industrialized world. Issues and debates concerning healthcare delivery generally center on several related issues: how do different models of healthcare delivery affect the quality of care delivered? How do the different models affect the costs of providing healthcare, and who should have the right to make decisions about the healthcare of other people? These questions about methods of healthcare delivery have their root in two facts: health is an issue about which most people care intensely, and providing optimal healthcare can be a very expensive proposition in the modern world.

Two additional facts contribute to the rising costs of healthcare that are behind many of the most heated debates about healthcare delivery. One is that usually people do not pay directly for their healthcare: instead it is covered by general tax revenues, by specific government programs, or by private insurance. In any case, the amount an individual pays to support the system may have no direct relationship to the costs of services that he or she uses (although he/she may be required to make a copayment or pay for a small percentage of those services) and hence he or she does not know the actual costs of the services received and has little incentive to try to limit those costs. A second fact is that providing goods and services to the healthcare market can be an extremely lucrative business and thus an incentive exists to create and provide those goods and services independent of whether they contribute substantially to the presumed goal of improving the recipient's health.

Patient Rights

One of the important factors that need to be considered and taken care of in the health care system is the right of the patients. Patient rights are strict claims made by persons seeking and using healthcare resources. Because an actual right obligates someone or some entity to protect or provide something, healthcare professionals and organizations are responsible for acknowledging, honoring, protecting, and supporting patient rights. At the core of the medical decision-making process are significant patient rights—for example, the rights to be treated respectfully, to participate in decisions affecting one's health ...