Doctors' Dilemma: Should you prescribe unfunded medication to a poor patient?
When your patient wants, but cannot afford, a certain treatment, what is the best way to handle the situation?
The dilemma: Dorothy is a 52-year-old woman with type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension and mild depression. She has had shingles in the past and is keen to have the shingles vaccine. However, she cannot afford the $200 cost.
What can a doctor do?
The considerations
This is a problem about providing an unfunded medication to a patient. This problem may rear its head in many clinical guises, especially as patients now have increasingly easy access to information.
Patients may ask the doctor for