Healthcare Administrator



Healthcare Administrator

Introduction

Healthcare professionals work in a complex working environment, associated with several laws, regulations, and standards of practice. In a hospital setting, the health care administration forms the basic governance of a health care setting, and also overviews the legal implications of the healthcare facility, implicitly and explicitly based on law and the legal system of the country (Avoiding Medicare Fraud & Abuse: A Roadmap for Physicians, 2012).

Discussion

Importance of the physician-patient and hospital-patient relationships

Physician-patient and hospital-patient relationships are primary factors leading to legal implications. As health care administrator, holds the highest position to overview the hospital, as a whole. He/she needs to put in serious effort to avoid any legal issues to take place.

Physician-patient relationships

Physician-patient relationship plays a vital role in the healing alliance. A patient entrust the physician when he agrees to seek treatment from him/her. This bounds the physicians to numerous legal and ethical obligations towards their patient. The Code of Medical Ethics from the American Medical Association (AMA) states that ethical values and legal issues are quite similar. Hence, the physicians should know both legal and ethical obligations. The health care administrator keeps a check over the relationships of physician-patient. This can help to identify any potential threats to breach of duty, resulting in legal prosecutions (American Medical Association (AMA), 2013).

Hospital-patient relationships

The physician-patient and hospital-patient relationships overlap to some extent, but they are not identical. Where the physician-patient relation can exist outside the hospital as well, hospital-patient relation limits itself in some emergency situations. Hospital-patient relations also address the issues of nondiscrimination laws and restrictions of patients. This refers to the hospital's responsibility to patients requiring emergency care, issues concerning discharges, and allocation of scarce resources (Miller & Hutton, 2004, pp. 420-448).

There are various laws and regulations, which prohibits discrimination amongst patients. Furthermore, hospitals need to plan their discharge process, referring to tension between the liability, which can result from either keeping the patient too long or releasing the patient too soon. Lastly, in addition to the admission and, discharge of the patient, this section also requires the allocation of scarce resources. The appropriate usage of these resources is a critical responsibility of the health care administrator (Miller & Hutton, 2004, pp. 420-448).

Contract principle and breach of warranty

A contract is defined as a special agreement, which may be either written or oral and that engages two or more parties into ...