Question

What should a patient do if he wants a blood test but his doctor will not order it? Include in your answer a discussion of the fact that patients can now order and pay for a variety of blood tests without their doctor's permission or prescription. See http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Blood-Tests/.

Explain why so many elderly patients feel their hospital attending physicians have abandoned them when the physicians say things like "at your age, there is nothing more e can do?" and pressure the patients and families to get the patients out of the hospital and into nursing homes.

Be sure to list your reference and use in-text citations to give credit to your source.

Answer 1

A blood test is a laboratory examination of a blood sample to check the functions of certain organ, to find out the presence of infection, certain genetic disorders and to assess the general health status of a person.

In traditional healthcare model, physician has the control of determining what diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring are to be performed on a patient.

As early as 1950,the general public, however, was introduced to the concept of being directly involved in their own laboratory testing with  the availability of over-the-counter urine glucose and ketone tests.

With diabetes mellitus leading the way, an expansion of over-the-counter testing technology, and a movement for more empowerment of consumers to take the responsibility for their own healthcare, has created a major paradigm shift in healthcare, moving from a physician focus to a consumer focus.

One manifestation of this has been direct access testing (DAT) for laboratory services. DAT is also known by a variety of other names including consumer ordered tests, patient-directed testing, direct access to lab services, consumer driven testing, self-ordering, direct-to-consumer and consumer self-orders.

DAT is offered by hospital and commercial laboratories, either by internet or in face-to-face encounters, with a broad range of test menus often defined or limited by state regulations.

https://www.ascls.org/position-papers/179-direct-access-testing/155-direct-access-testing

Patient especially elderly people can easily feel abandoned. Every one need some motivation to come out of illness. Elderly people are sensitive. They are very keeen to know about the disease condition.

Feeling of abandonment among elderly patients will cause some level of stress in them and they my end up in some diseases. Physician should always encourage the patients and should not pass any negative comments about the patient when they visit the patient .

Nursing homes provide better care for elderly and patients who need acute care. Some people do get better, others will stay there until the end. As because elderly patients need to be closely monitored, and need continuous and more frequent care, and as because better care will be provided in nursing homes than hospitals, physicians are advising the patient and families to admit the patient in nursing home.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20853170/