Really?
Is it? With the exception of immoral rules, when is it not right to follow them?
When someone else screws up (intentionally or accidental) in a way that benefits me but cheats the system even immaterially, I personally cannot live with that. If the conscience that you have spent your life trying to properly form allows you to do so, well…
…go for it if you must.
The point is that unless the law states otherwise (which I doubt it does, even in the US), it is not the patient’s responsibility to police their doctor. Therefore, the patient does not break the law by not doing anything. So there is no legal obligation to intervene. Since the laws or rules in question are morally neutral, there would neither be a moral obligation.
Likewise, Rin, do what you feel is right.
I don’t think your situation is perfectly analogous to Veronica97s, and it sounds as though you had an itch of conscience yourself to change things.
I’d say the itch was more from my autistic need for correctness than from conscience
Said need sometimes coincides by what could properly be called conscience, though (correcting a store clerk if they give me too much change), but may just as well just be morally neutral and, to be honest, annoying (calling my accountant cousin because I found a quarter dollar imbalance in my bookkeeping).
I don’t think you were “stupidly honest” because I don’t think such a thing exists.
I do sort of agree with that - but from the pharmacist’s point of view, I was.
Likewise, I suspect you are NOT in the US (by description of your system and timestamp of posting, and I’m guessing NHS?).
Norway, but close enough. The system is similar to NHS, but, to be honest, not as good. They have more choices and better coverage (as in what is covered - dentistry, for example, isn’t covered after you turn 18 here). Basically our hospitals are mainly (with the exception of some specialized clinics) owned and funded by the government, while GPs, many specialists and pharmacies are generally private, and they interact with welfare as they would with an insurer in other countries. Except there’s only one insurance, so the systems are a bit more integrated.
I agree, the pharmacist isn’t the “control organ” for checking your benefit. However, the computer system adjudicates it to the PBM (or whatever) and that, in fact, is the “control organ.”
No idea what a PBM is, to be honest. But generally, if special dispensation is needed, the systems will check for such dispensation, and if the patient can’t present one (they used to be on paper, but they could be digitalized now - I’m not sure), the pharmacist can’t give the medication for free.
However, in cases like this, no dispensation is needed, only very specific diagnostic criteria. The doctor is responsible to fill out the refund codes correctly, and if he or she doesn’t, the electronic system won’t know. There is however a control organ which regularly visits doctors to manually check whether they follow such requirements. If there are too many “mistakes”, they’ll get a warning.
If you intentionally deceive that, or obfiscate what you’re actually doing to your benefit, you may well beat the system. It sounds like your doctor, seeing you on welfare (or knowing it, as apparently that is your “control organ?”), was trying to help you out.
That happens all the time. Right? Moral? Not IMHO, but again, I’m not going to spend any time sniffing this out. Sounds like you knew it yourself.
To be honest, my previous doctor was pretty scatterbrained, so he may well have dozed off while he issued that prescription. He is a good doctor, but I corrected his prescriptions more than once. So I’m not sure it was intentional. This happened after prescriptions turned digital, which was, to be honest, quite annoying, since mistakes then didn’t show until I went to the pharmacy. Imagine the frustration upon realizing I had been prescribed a toddler dosage of asthma meds.
But I agree that doctors beating the system to help patients is gray-area at best. However, the laws are as I said morally neutral (the immoral thing is to break them, not the action in itself, and in this case the sin would be venial at worst), and unless the patient is required by law to police their doctor (which would be absurd), the patient does not break the law if they simply fill the prescript. There would be no sin.
As for what I know and don’t know, see above
PS, how do you misquote someone by copying it verbatim?
She clearly explained where you misquoted me - not in what you copied, but you went from “rules” (in the direct quote) to “right” in your own statement. That is begging the question, and also as far as I can see a straw man - I never said that “knowing right and not doing it doesn’t make me responsible”. This is what she pointed out.
