With a little research you can confirm that the use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements is expanding in the corporate world, especially in healthcare institutions. Such agreements amount to a form of corporate probation that requires usually about two years of compliance with a plan to correct the problems that created the circumstances for criminal prosecution and sometimes include follow-ups to those two-year agreements.
While the benefits of the Deferred Prosecution agreements, including the avoidance of legal penalties that might arise from an actual conviction of individuals and of criminal findings against a healthcare institution might be helpful to maintaining the existence of the healthcare institution, hopefully functioning at the new higher level of behavior meaning not engaging in criminal activity, in terms of patients I take issue to the frequent claims by organizations operating under the mandates of such deferred prosecutions when they claim that their criminal activity had “nothing” to do with patient care.
Under deferred prosecutions, organizations that behave themselves in accordance with deferred prosecution plans can frequently avoid criminal liability once their two years are up and after they’ve paid enormous amounts of money refunding wrongfully taken funds, and paying legal fees, in addition to fines and penalties.
Who do you think ultimately pays for these sums? Is this something that does NOT impact patient care? Obviously, paying for healthcare services is a central concern for patients and future patients. When corporations escape criminal liability by paying fines and penalties, it is unrealistic to assume these costs won’t be passed onto consumers.
Further, since when are financial ethics separate from patient care? From over-testing to defrauding Medicare, to the cost of needed medical care, whether technically legal or not, the healthcare business is heavily involved in maximizing dollars and when an organization shows its willingness to engage in criminal activity leading to deferred prosecution, every patient should wonder whether that organization will start encouraging its staff to test more, schedule more appointments or even increase the numbers of procedures it performs with an eye towards profit.
In a world that increasingly holds people responsible for every act they’ve ever done whether it was a one time or repetitive event, and in a world that publishes the photographs of individuals accused of wrongdoing prior to their convictions, it is a disservice to patients and future patients that these same standards are not applied to medical organizations and their staff.
With this in mind, you should determine whether your medical provider is subject to a deferred prosecution agreement. Many times as part of this agreement these institutions are required to post such agreements on their sites, but naturally, they’re infrequently listed on the front page. For me, when I read an organization’s statement that their criminal behavior did not impact patient care, I don’t believe they have regret for their conduct, but only a regret that they were caught. Patient care requires ethics and a failure to apologize for a lack of such ethics shows no promise of reform.
