Month: February 2019

Only You Are Your Best Advocate 

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As a patient in the U.S. health care system you will face many obstacles to getting safe, quality, and affordable health care. To overcome them, you must advocate for yourself and lead your health care team. You’ll get a big assist from many primary and specialty care practices transitioning into medical homes and providing patient-centered care.

You are the core of your health. You make the most of the choices that impact your health. You certainly feel or suspect that something may be wrong long before anyone else. You decide when and how to engage with the health care system.

The crucial steps when advocating for yourself are:

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Is Doctors Lying to Patients Ever OK?

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We all know the healthcare system is difficult at best and more likely just broken. A recent Medscape poll of 286 physicians and 362 RNs and APRNs reported that at least some physicians felt it was OK to lie to patients about a medical error (17%), prognosis (14%), and to get treatment (24%).

There’s more information about lying to patients in this report from Medscape.

While it’s understandable that any clinician might lie if they felt they were helping a patient, doesn’t that reinforce a dangerous presumption that doctors know better than patients what’s in the patient’s interest?

Two questions that need to be asked in future polls are “how do patients feel about doctors and nurses lying to them,” and “how will we activate patients to contribute to their care teams if we don’t trust them with the truth?”