The provider’s dilemma

by | Dec 14, 2021 | Main

The provider’s dilemma is that her practice is no longer successful and on the verge of closing its doors after 19 years. Not only does she only have 1 more year before retirement, but her loyal office staff is also on the verge of being unemployed. Since the physician and her staff are older, the physician fears that they may not receive any employment. For the staff, since they have been long term employees, they are loyal and trust the physician with her decisions.

The temptation to keep the business running and successful is apparent. One illegal choice to keep the practice going is by upcoding and overcharging insurance companies for services not performed. Since no physical harm may come to the patient by upcoding, it is still illegal. However, a physician has a moral and legal obligation to “do no harm.” This is in relation to their patient care aspect but also their practice and employees. The physician has legal and ethical values to uphold. “A number of characteristics are associated with medical ethics such as autonomy, confidentiality, nonmaleficence, beneficence, honesty, justice, and dignity. Medical professionals’ decisions are based not only on clinical and technical grounds but also on ethical grounds (Kumar et al. 2019, p112).” There is no gray area in this situation, either the physician has intent to perform upcoding or she decides not to.

Since she is a loyal physician to the community and as a healthcare professional, I do not see how someone could do such intentional harm. She could have the potential to get caught, jeopardize her medical license, must repay damages and fines, and could potentially get her staff in legal trouble. It is unfortunate that this action of malicious and misconduct occurs. It has been found that “more urbanized states and states with a larger elderly population experienced a greater incidence of medical fraud (Goel, 2020, p520).” In 2019, a healthcare company, Sutter Health were accused of upcoding and agreed to settle and pay $30 million (Modern Healthcare, 2019). Healthcare costs for services are increasing but performing illegal actions to keep your business running is ethically wrong.

                                                                  References

Goel, R. K. (2020). Medical professionals and health care fraud: Do they aid or check abuse? Managerial & Decision Economics, 41(4), 520–528. https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.3117

Kumar, L., Barwa, J., Sharma, J. P., Ohri, P., & Beg, M. A. (2019). Developing a Module of Medical Ethics for Post MBBS. Journal of Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, 19(2), 112–119. https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-083X.2020.00021.7 Sutter Health will pay $30M to settle upcoding allegations. (2019). Modern Healthcare, 49(15), 2.

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Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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