Medical Ethics Advisor – August 1, 2015

August 1, 2015

• Patient records doctor’s insulting comments: Jury awards $500,000

  A highly publicized lawsuit involving a sedated patient whose smartphone recorded a doctor’s insulting comments resulted in a recent $500,000 jury verdict.

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• Medicare proposes paying for advance care planning

  Proposed changes to the 2016 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule includes a provision for two new advance care planning codes.

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• Study’s findings can improve advance care planning for heart failure patients

  Advance care planning for heart failure patients can be improved by basing discussions on four transitions commonly experienced by patients and caregivers, a recent study suggests.

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• Patients using social media to lobby for access to investigational drugs

  Social media campaigns have successfully pressured drug companies to approve some requests for investigational drugs for terminally ill patients under expanded access programs, but this raises significant ethical concerns.

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• Choose your words carefully

  A family member hearing certain words is unlikely to understand the provider’s likely meaning that the patient is in the dying process and that aggressive treatments are likely to do more harm than good.

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• Cystic fibrosis patients face ethical issues with direct-to-consumer genetic testing

  Researchers surveyed 47 patients with cystic fibrosis and 65 parents of children with cystic fibrosis to assess their views on direct-to-consumer carrier tests; most indicated they preferred healthcare systems to provide testing, as opposed to commercial companies.

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