To Suspend or Not to Suspend

To Suspend or Not to Suspend

To suspend or not to suspend is an ethical dilemma cases being experienced by Maya who works at Community Medical center with the jurisdiction of being an assistance Director of the Health information services department. At the past, she had worked for 15 years in the field of health information management. She is a new employee in the community Medical center. Within a period of two weeks, she has been well versed with the statistics required to be maintained for the joint commission for the purpose of licensing. This has been attributed due to her working experience with some of the joint commission accredited facilities. For instance she has worked as a physician record assistance in an acute care hospital with a capacity of 250-bed (Grebner, 2000).

In this new facility, the suspension of all those physicians who have incomplete records is done on Wednesdays. On the first Wednesdays while Maya is assisting D’shondra, who is the physician Record Assistant as she compiles the list of those physicians who are to be suspended, Maya notes that there is a list of six physicians who are supposed to get suspensions but are not suspended. After noticing this she alerts D’Shondra that there are six physicians who have incomplete record but have not been included on the suspension list as well as the statistical data for the suspension and delivering of delinquency rates. But instead of including them to the suspension list D’Shondra only responds by stating that there are unwritten rule in the facility which states that these physicians are not supposed to be suspended under any circumstance. When Maya insist about being given a concrete reason why these physicians are not suspended, D’Shondra tells her that it has been the policy of the organization for a number of years now which must be influenced by something substantial (Grebner, 2000).

The concerns of the Maya are not only on the fairness of the other physicians but also geared towards having accuracy of the information being compiled each week and also the integrity of the documentation status (Schnering, 2008). As a result of her concern Maya goes further to take her concern to Barbara who is the Director of Health information services in the facility. Barbara explains that there are a number of reasons which makes these physicians to be exempted from the suspension list. Barbara explains that one of physician have a number of clients whom she has brought to the facility and threatens of taking them away to the competing institution in case she is suspended. Two other physicians are cardiac surgeons who have threatened that in case they are suspended as a result of incomplete records they will not utilize the facility for their surgical cases. The fourth physician who is also exempted from the list of suspension, Barbara states that this physician is a brother in-law of the Medical Center’s Chief Executive Officer. This physician has no known history of threatening the organization but as a result of the family ties he is exempted from the suspension. The other two physicians are exempted due to their nuisance nature if anything in the organization is not done in their way. One of the physicians has even convinced the managing director that he will be able to complete the incomplete records if only she gets exemption from the suspension (Grebner, 2000).

This is an ethical dilemma which is especially challenging and tricky to a person who is committed to fairness and accuracy of the information that she delivers. For Maya this is a tricky situation to her comparing with her previous experience which had trained her to be honest and fair in her dealings (Cororado, 2005). As a Human service professional faced with this kind of dilemma, I would consider addressing it in a manner in which I will not infringe with the normal operation of the facility. As matter of maintaining normal operation of the hospital I would try to encourage completing of these records promptly with especially to the affected physicians without imposing any sought of threat but with a good tag to improve on the operation and future retrieving of the information. This will encourage the entire physician to participate in this cause. In cases where the physicians fail to achieve this I would respect the bylaws of the institution which their main aim is to maintain the smooth operation of the hospital and try to encourage the physicians  to have prompt record next time without disclosing them directly, but dealing with them on a confidential basis (White, 2002).