HCM621-0804A-01 Ethics, Policy, and Law in Health Care Management - Essay - 3

HCM621-0804A-01 Ethics, Policy, and Law in Health Care Management - Phase 2 Discussion Board - Essay Example (Safire, 1993) The Watergate scandal impacted our current privacy act and health care privacy laws. If you go to The False Claims Act Legal Center (http://www.taf.org) you will find out of the top 100 claims of violations and fines, over 50 of them are health care institutions. For example, July 2006, Tenet Healthcare had billing violations that include manipulation of outlier payments to Medicare, as well as kickbacks, upcoding, and bill padding. June 2006, St. Barnabas Healthcare, filed false "outlier" Medicare payments (41%) which a hospital can claim if a procedure is particularly difficult or complex. January 2000, Fresenius Medical Care, the worlds largest provider of kidney dialysis products and services, was caught in a scam which involved fraudulent and fictitious blood testing, kickbacks to dialysis facilities to obtain blood testing contracts for LifeChem, and fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare for intradialytic parenteral nutrition. (TAF, 2006) Different kinds of human nature are the driving force behind violations of ethics. Some people are motivated by weighing the risk of getting caught versus the benefit of the fraudulent act. Others might be acting in the interest of rivalry – will this act cause them to move ahead of the competition? A desire to succeed can sometimes cause shortcutting or sidestepping ethical policies. Some people follow the rules of ethics simply because they do not wish to pay the consequences. Many are motivated to keep ethical standards by their own sense of fairness and self-respect. They self-police their own actions based on their moral code learned over time. And finally, some people simply do not know what the standards of ethics are about – never assume all people share the same education and ability to absorb external training. Since it is our business to provide ethical treatment and care for our customer – it’s in our own best interest to exceed minimum legal