Question

You are the hospital administrator for a county hospital, which is funded in a large part by that county's property taxes. You discover that you have an indigent patient who has been mistakenly admitted as an inpatient to the hospital strictly for dialysis treatment. The hospital does not, as a general practice, provide only dialysis treatment for patients. This is beyond the scope of the hospital's mandate and is therefore, an inappropriate use of local property tax funding.

If the indigent patient is discharged from the hospital and dialysis treatment is terminated, the patient will become toxic and experience severe physical consequences, even death. However, if the patient is kept in the hospital for purposes of dialysis treatment only, the hospital must assume the burden of the patient's debt, without revenue to cover the associated cost.

An introduction

Definition of the problem.

Identification of the stakeholders.

Identification of alternative solutions

Answer 1

An introduction

A hospital administrator of a property taxes funded county hospital is in a position to decide regarding care of an indigent patient admitted for dialysis .

Definition of the problem.

A poor patient admitted for dialysis against hospital mandate poses burden of debt but cannot be discharged as he may face consequences even death.

Identification of the stakeholders.

Property tax of people, Hospital administrator, physician and other hospital staffs along with patient

Identification of alternative solutions

The patient can be kept in hospital or discharged. The value of life is priceless and cannot be measured in terms of money.

But as property tax of people is used for paying bills of patients and against hospital mandate it cannot be used for a particular source , process of getting small donations of money from many people for paying patient's debt known as crowd funding. Negotiate the patient bill as he is poor. If there is a medical emergency, a hospital must treat regardless of ability to pay for services.