Posted On: May 18, 2007, 12:48 pm CDT

Posted By: Jane Q. Public

If your patient is not practicing a reasonably healthy lifestyle then whatever damage they do to themselves that results in illness or death would be considered a self-inflicted wound, or suicide
.
Example: I know smoking MAY kill me or cause other health issues, so I sign a contract with my doctor that says he is not to be held liable if I die from lung cancer or end up with a hole in my throat and a voice box. If I drink like a fish, it's my fault if I need a new liver, not the doctor's.

The pay while you are healthy plan works because the patient is expected to do their best to maintain their health. If the patient ends up dying because the doctor misdiagnosed pancreatic cancer by assuming early warning symptoms in an otherwise healthy woman was simple diabetes; and (like my mother) the patient dies a slow and excruciatingly painful death...

Well, I for one don't believe that doctor deserves to be paid. And frankly, he owes me death benefits, because if he'd found the cancer in its early stages (done the test like I asked because mom's lifestyle didn't indicate a propensity for adult diabetes and no one else in the family has ever had it) it would have been operable and she'd still be alive.