Thread: A China Dilema, waiting for your opinion

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    Question A China Dilema, waiting for your opinion

    There is a fierce debate in China now, whether a patient or his relatives should pay extra money stealthly to the doctor in charge for better cure?

    since many incidents happened to patients due to carelessness or something in public media. many new patients and his relatives would rather to pay such money to the doctor.
    This phenomineon is very popular in China, to some doctors, income of this kind is far higher than their payment.

    Now the debate is hottest topic in China.

    If you can tell me whether happens in you country, how the law deal with it?

    Thank you in advance.

  2. #2
    'AlHamdulillah
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    In our country, there is such a thing as "doctor-patient privilege", which I do not know if China has, does it?

    Basically, it can be known that you went to a doctor(however a doctor is usually not allowed to say if someone is a patient unless it is a criminal investigation, and even then the rest of the stuff I am about to say holds true); however, people are not aloud to ascertain info from doctors as to what exactly the problem is, and what treatment the doctor prescribed, etc.(and you can get into serious civil lawsuits and have your license revoked if you forsake "doctor-patient privilege". So there is no real need for a "bribe" of the doctor not to spread info.

  3. #3
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Um he said about bribing to keep the doctor from giving out the info. He is talking about bribing to get better treatment

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    The bribery mainly comes out of that in curing the patients, especially in a sergury operation, the doctor will try more of his best to it, other wise, patients have worry about the ignorance from the doctor and the tendering nurse.
    "doctor-patient privilege" is nothing to do with china, if it is a serious case, the hosptital will sign a disclaiming contract before cure, and of course all curing method and means will be writen in the contract.
    One thing has to make clear, in these years, doctors in hospitals have bad reputation due to many reported medical insidents and nonchalant attitude to patients.
    The Bribery, pronunced "LEE" in China, which means a (monetaty) way of respect, is very common in every fields (including business) in traditional China, but now those in business field will incur lawsuit of bribery, while those to the doctors are now in debating?
    Please give your opinion, I am much appeciating to it!

  5. #5
    train spotter
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    First...

    Like all professions you get good doctors and bad.

    Part of the doctors creed, the Hypocratic Oath, states that they have to give all patients the best care possible.

    Some procedures cost more than others and so in some cases the treatment has to be tailored to that the patient can afford. Which is why there are government heath systems to provide for those unable to afford these treatments.
    To clarify, you may need laser surgury to correct your eyesight OR if you cannot afford it, glasses or contact lenses would do the same thing.


    So...

    I find the idea that a doctor would withhold treatment because they think you are poor repugnant (unacceptable, disgraceful).

    The doctors priority should be to heal those in need, not to enrich themselves (by accepting payments to treat the patient properly).

    In a capitalist system the best doctors should generate a reputation that will allow them to charge more. Similar to a brand name.
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    In a capitalist system the best doctors should generate a reputation that will allow them to charge more. Similar to a brand name.

    ---I appreciate this sentence. But in China A Brand Name of a doctor will bring him more such covered earnings.

    Do you think whether such case should be legally banned or only by hoping doctors will improve their moral level?

  7. #7
    'AlHamdulillah
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    In a capitalist system the best doctors should generate a reputation that will allow them to charge more
    not in the US, private insurances and medicare tell doctors how much they can bill for certain procedures if they expect to get paid, now it is only different if you are going alternative therapy or something that insurance does not cover. What might be different are high risk surgeries like brain surgery, but usually the hospital declares a rate, not the physician. Now, a doctor could bill for extra procedures, but that is fraud and the doctor runs the risk of going to jail for a long time.

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    monotonously living Dissata's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by EvBladeRunnervE
    not in the US, private insurances and medicare tell doctors how much they can bill for certain procedures if they expect to get paid, now it is only different if you are going alternative therapy or something that insurance does not cover. What might be different are high risk surgeries like brain surgery, but usually the hospital declares a rate, not the physician. Now, a doctor could bill for extra procedures, but that is fraud and the doctor runs the risk of going to jail for a long time.
    not necesserily, a doctor doesn't have to be associated with a hospital, a lot of specialized doctors run their own practice. if so, they can declare their own cost. also, one does not have to accept the alotted medicare treatment, you can seek outside help, there is, however, greater cost involved.
    if a contradiction was contradicted would that contradition contradict the origional crontradiction?

  9. #9
    It's full of stars adrianxw's Avatar
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    We do not have to pay for medical treatment. If a doctor is found to be performing badly, he is retrained or removed by the medical authorities.

    The idea that paying a doctor will make him try harder seems crazy to me.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dissata
    not necesserily, a doctor doesn't have to be associated with a hospital, a lot of specialized doctors run their own practice. if so, they can declare their own cost. also, one does not have to accept the alotted medicare treatment, you can seek outside help, there is, however, greater cost involved.
    If such "out of hospital" doctor asks more payment than a in-hospital doctor, does it means he has more expertise or more professional in certain field?
    Is the practice he is running called a clinical (personal treatment center)?
    If it can say a hospital is a company from legal point of view, while a clinical is not?
    Thank you!
    Last edited by childem; 06-10-2004 at 03:12 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by adrianxw
    We do not have to pay for medical treatment. If a doctor is found to be performing badly, he is retrained or removed by the medical authorities.

    The idea that paying a doctor will make him try harder seems crazy to me.
    To my knowlege, those who spent extra money have much to worry about, such as:
    The doctor would use a "tough" hand to go the scalpel, not a "soft" hand;
    The doctor would give more observation to the patients to avoid unthinkable incidents;
    The doctor would be more haste when the patients need special care;
    The nurse will be more tender to the patients;
    For such things, a patient can donothing but complaints, which will have little influence to the doctor and his career.

  12. #12
    ¡Amo fútbol!
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    In my opinion, a doctor should perform his best no matter what. However, if a higher quality doctor wants to charge more for his care, then so be it. This concept is very capitalistic though, which again blurs the line in China between capitalism and communism.

  13. #13
    'AlHamdulillah
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    not necesserily, a doctor doesn't have to be associated with a hospital, a lot of specialized doctors run their own practice. if so, they can declare their own cost. also, one does not have to accept the alotted medicare treatment, you can seek outside help, there is, however, greater cost involved.
    sorry bro, this is not the case, and I should know since my father runs his own clinic. when you bill for procedures/treatment, you use what is called "coding", there is a code for each and every single operation/procedure that a doctor could ever imagine doing. There are rules and regs on each code, saying how often it can be used on a patient and be billed for(such as, 3 epidurals in the same day on same patient sounds very fishy, the rules are to prevent this), and each insurance has a list of what codes they accept for billing. People can private pay, BUT, and I mean BUT, if you service medicare patients(almost all doctors do as they are a large patient base), you cannot charge any privately paying patient any more than medicare allows(because there are laws about unfair treatment of medicare patients compared to privately insured/paying patients).

    the only way a doctor anymore can charge what they want is if they have a small , rich client base, as most patients go Chapter 11 on doctors if their bills get too high.

  14. #14
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    From what I am hearing... if your are considering medical help maybe you should consider another country. Doctor's should make you feel safe and secure, not threatened or scared if you didn't throw in the extra money.... sheesh.
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  15. #15
    carry on JaWiB's Avatar
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    >>The idea that paying a doctor will make him try harder seems crazy to me.

    Same here. My dad works as a family doctor, and I think he would think less of a patient if they tried to do that.

    Plastic surgery on the other hand...
    "Think not but that I know these things; or think
    I know them not: not therefore am I short
    Of knowing what I ought."
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