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Ethical Integrity in Health Care Organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jessica Mantel
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Extract

The rise of managed care initiated a steady decline in solo and small group physician practices and the emergence of new delivery models built around large health care organizations (HCOs). Health care reform has only accelerated this trend as public and private payors shift to new payment methodologies that reward clinical and financial integration among providers. As a result, patients increasingly receive care from physicians and other health professionals organized into collaborative partnerships with one another and institutional providers, such as hospitals. As described below, this new organizational dynamic profoundly influences the clinical judgment of physicians. No longer can society simply depend on the professionalism of individual physicians to ensure ethical integrity in the health care setting. Rather, ethical integrity in the health care setting also requires a strong foundation of organizational ethics.

Type
JLME Column: Currents in Contemporary Bioethics
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2015 , pp. 661 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2015

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