Ask an NP – How to Cope with Ethical Dilemmas

00:00 So I've run into a lot of ethical dilemmas in especially just healthcare in general, particularly as a nurse practitioner, I think the biggest ethical dilemmas come with billing, because you went into this to help people, right.

00:13 You want to be able to provide them services.

00:15 But at the end of the day, the way our healthcare system is structured is it's a business.

00:19 And you kind of have the power a little bit as a nurse practitioner to almost fudge that number.

00:26 Sometimes, I'm going to bill you differently than perhaps I should.

00:29 And that gets into a lot of ethical dilemmas, right? Do I give you the care for a discounted price When really, I'm undervaluing what I'm doing.

00:36 So technically, that is not legal within the healthcare system and how we do reinsurance reimbursement? Where do you tow that line? How do you handle situations like that, where if you don't do that, then someone might not get care? As well as where is your scope of practice has also fallen into that a lot with if you can't afford to go see a cardiologist, but I'm not trained to provide that level of care.

01:01 Where do we draw the line in the sand and say, then I guess you're just not getting care.

01:05 And so that's been a lot of conversations, you know, just very openly with patients.

01:10 And also a way to help with that is getting to know your local specialists and have a relationship with them.

01:17 So then you can sometimes call them and be like, "Hey, I have this situation like, I can't send them to you.

01:22 But like, would you do this?" And a lot of times if you already are sending them other patients, I mean, they're humans too. They just want to help people.

01:28 And it can be a great resource for helping bridge that gap.

01:31 If you run into situations like that.