How the Rich and Influential Get Health Care Different from You and Me: Data About How Very Influential Persons Get Expedited Care

An MSNBC story summarized some new data about how at least a particular subset of the rich can get different health care from you and me:

Expedited Care for the Influential

In a letter published in this week’s Annals of Emergency Medicine, Dr. A.J. Smally of Hartford Hospital and the University of Connecticut reports that more than half of the 33 emergency department medical directors in his state said they routinely provide so-called 'expedited' care to influential people.

The influential people here include "corporate donors, hospital administrators, or, say, the brother-in-law of the president of the board of directors."

This was corroborated by "a survey of 100 emergency doctors nationwide" which showed that "84 of them had given or would given extra attention to an influential person, such as a famous person or a hospital donor."

Dr Smally asserted, "emergency triage protocols mandate treating the sickest patients first, no matter their social status." However, he also acknowledged that influential people will get treated more quickly,

'Somebody calls and says so-and-so is coming in, can you make sure they get good care,' Smally said. 'We bump them up a notch. If everyone is waiting four hours, they might just wait one hour.'

Better "Hotel Services"

The article also noted that influential people are likely to get better "hotel services" from hospitals, presumably at no extra cost to them:

to the head of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, a 5,000-memeber organization dedicated to boosting donations, tending to contributors when they’re sick or injured is just part of doing business.

'It is true, we pay attention to our donors,' said Bill McGinly, president and CEO of AHP, who says most development departments are alerted when VIPs enter their hospitals. 'They’ve gone above and beyond. We recognize that their contributions can make a difference to the community.'

In some cases, that care can border on coddling. At Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Conn., donors who contribute $100,000 or more are known as 'Navigators' who receive not only a place at the front of the line, but top-tier attention as well.

'We help the family in any which way that we can,' said Carol Brennan-Smith, communications manager for the Norwalk Hospital Foundation. 'If their cell phone has no juice or they need a battery charger. It can be ‘I want lemonade, I want a Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream.’ If we can do it, we will.'

Grumbling and a Little Dissent
The ER docs involved also seemed unwilling to question the practic, although they did not seem perfectly comfortable with it:

grumbling is common, but to Smally and other ED docs, there’s little moral dilemma. Dr. Michael Carius, chair of the emergency department at Norwalk Hospital, home of the 'Navigators,' said he’s confident that no one is harmed by the practice — and that it actually may wind up doing greater good.

'This is a way of building good will so that when there is a need the hospital has, there’s this favor bank,' he said.

The article only noted briefly that not all would agree with him:

ethicists and patient advocates worry that improved access for VIPs undermines the public mission of community emergency rooms and raises sharp questions about health care equality.

'It’s not fair at the micro-level and I’m not sure it’s fair at the macro-level,' noted Laura Weil, former director of the Health Advocacy Program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.

In my humble opinion, the data and anecdotes summarized in the article raise a host of issues that deserve further thought.

Can the Self-Interested Be Donors, and Should They Receive Favored Treatment from the Government?
First, let us address the issue of donors receiving better "hotel services." I am not sure there are problems with offering better hotel services, as long as they have no direct effect on medical care, for a price to anyone who is willing to pay.

However, the article suggests that the donors receive special services that might not be available to anyone else, even for a price. If so, that challenges their claim to be donors. Donation implies a lack of self interest, and is honored socially, and financially by the US Internal Revenue Service in the form of a tax deduction. If donors are receiving special consideration in return for their donation, their donations may actually be self-interested means to get services they could not buy on the open market, and do not deserve honor.

Even if the donation was given expecting a partial quid pro quo in the form of a service that could otherwise be obtained by others for a price, to the extent that the donations included money paid for services, they may not deserve tax deductions. If the hospitals did not report the donation less the price of the services received in exchange for it, or if the donors did not subtract this amount from their donation before deducting it from their taxes, it might be worth an IRS investigation, perhaps both of the hospitals' non-profit status and the donors' personal tax returns.

I hope the IRS is paying attention to this issue.

Is It Ethical to Give Patients Who Are Not Donors Slower Care for Acute Illnesses?

A much bigger problem is the data suggesting donors, hospital executives, and their relatives may get not only cushier hotel services, but more rapid emergency department care.  Since emergency departments are often operating near capacity, this rapid care for some may mean slower care for others.  In many cases, slower care means more pain, more suffering, more morbidity, and in certain cases, a higher likelihood of dying.

Physicians have an ethical obligation to put each patient's interests ahead of other concerns (like attracting more donations to the hospital). It seems unethical to me to put a less sick patient ahead of a more sick patient because the former is an influential person.

Knowing that sick patients sometimes get delayed care to make way for a VIP may open a whole new area of legal discovery for plaintiffs' lawyers seeking to litigate against hospitals when patients suffer from slow care in the Emergency Department.

I hope plaintiffs' attorneys are paying attention to this issue.

There may also be legal issues for hospitals if the law requires them to make emergency care available to all acutely ill patients. If some hospitals delay emergency care for some acutely ill patients to provide expedited care for some less acutely ill patients because they are influential, there may be legal ramifications.

I hope the US Department of Justice, state attorneys general, and state departments of health are paying attention to this issue.

Does Insulating the Rich and Powerful from the Dysfunctional Health Care System Make for Bad Health Care Policy?
Finally, there is a larger health policy issue. At least a few of my fellow health care dissenters has been known to grimly opine that no real health care reform will take place until some big-wig, or his or her child, spouse, lover, sibling, or parent gets really bad care at the hands of our dysfunctional health care system. However, it appears that the rich and powerful have found ways to make this improbable.

In a number of ways, the rich and powerful have found ways to engineer a deluxe health care system for themselves. We have posted how big corporate executives have access to "executive health insurance" which provides benefits beyond what any normal person can obtain, even from seemingly the best employer paid policy. In 2007, we posted about how one academic medical center had an "A-list" of influential people who got special amenities and more rapid care. Now there is data to suggest this may be common practice.

If the rick and powerful can insulate themselves from the dysfunction of the current health care system, do not expect their sympathy or support in reforming this system. It appears that to truly reform health care, we will have do something about the context, call it a new gilded age, new age of the robber barons, oligarchy, plutocracy, or age of crony capitalism, in which it exists.