• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Lying to doctors puts patients’ health at risk

Healthcare Auditing Weekly, January 23, 2007

Patients put their own health at risk when they lie to their doctors, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

They lie about how much they smoke and whether they're taking their medicine. They minimize how much they drink and overstate how much they exercise. They feign symptoms to get appointments quicker and ask doctors to hide the truth from insurance companies.

Leaving out information, not exactly a lie, can happen when doctors don't ask the right questions.

But lying can lead to expensive diagnostic procedures and unneeded referrals to specialists. It also can have disastrous results.

Doctors also should avoid phrases that sound judgmental, Nate Rickles, an assistant professor of pharmacy at Northeastern University, told the AP. There's a big difference between "Why aren't you taking the medication as prescribed?" and "A number of my patients don't take their medication as prescribed and they do it for a variety of reasons. What do you think might be going on with you?"

A survey of 131 gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers attending a youth conference in Los Angeles found that only 35% had told their doctors their sexual orientation. The findings were published in December's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

In fact, 64%, when asked what their doctor could do to make them comfortable with disclosing their orientation, marked the choice on the survey, "Just ask me."

Click here to read the full story.

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive