BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE

BIOETYKA / WPROWADZENIE - Przeglądy aktów prawnych

Free Choice – opinia AMA (American Medical Association)

Opinion 9.06 - Free Choice

Free choice of physicians is the right of every individual. One may select and change at will one’s physicians, or one may choose a medical care plan such as that provided by a closed panel or group practice or health maintenance or service organization. The individual’s freedom to select a preferred system of health care and free competition among physicians and alternative systems of care are prerequisites of ethical practice and optimal patient care.

In choosing to subscribe to a health maintenance or service organization or in choosing or accepting treatment in a particular hospital, the patient is thereby accepting limitations upon free choice of medical services.

The need of an individual for emergency treatment in cases of accident or sudden illness may, as a practical matter, preclude free choice of a physician, particularly where there is loss of consciousness.

Although the concept of free choice assures that an individual can generally choose a physician, likewise a physician may decline to accept that individual as a patient. In selecting the physician of choice, the patient may sometimes be obliged to pay for medical services which might otherwise be paid by a third party. (VI)