Bill of rights: Does a patient have the right to refuse medical treatment?

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You have the right to refuse medical treatment. But there are three exceptions to the right to refuse treatment. They occur when others are subsidising the patient’s income during his or her period of injury, sickness and inability to work.

Here are the three main exceptions to the right to refuse:

Workers’ Compensation

If you have been hurt or become sick as a result of your work or your work environment, and you are receiving income through workers’ compensation, then you may not have the right to refuse treatment. While specific laws addressing this issue vary from state to state, the idea is that an employee cannot legally continue to benefit financially by refusing treatment.

There will be gray areas, of course. There may be times a patient wants to refuse treatment for a medical problem unrelated to the injury or sickness that keeps him or her out of work. Refusing to get a flu shot is not the same as refusing a surgery that will repair someone’s body. Drug dependencies, whether or not they are the result of whatever treatment the employee is receiving, may affect that employee’s right to refuse treatment.

Employees may not have the right to refuse to go through a detox program, for example, depending on the results of those drug tests. This varies by state law. If you are receiving workers’ compensation and wish to refuse any sort of treatment, be sure you take the right steps and notify the right people in order to make that treatment refusal decision.

Social Security Disability (SSD)

Similar to workers’ compensation, people who receive social security disability may also find that they cannot legally refuse medical treatment. When taxpayers are providing you with income because you are sick or hurt, and if that illness or injury can be improved or repaired well enough so you can once again support yourself, you will not be allowed to refuse treatment. If you do, you will yield your right to receive that SSD support.As in workers’ comp, there are gray areas to this rule. SSD recipients are expected to pursue all “reasonable” forms of treatment. Of course, “reasonable” is left up to interpretation and treatment outcomes are never certain. If you are receiving SSD payments and wish to refuse any sort of treatment, be sure you take the right steps to make that treatment refusal decision. 

Private Disability

You may have chosen private disability insurance through your employer or individually through a company like Aflac or MassMutual. If your injury or sickness is unrelated to your employment but is affecting your ability to work or support yourself, that’s when your disability insurance will subsidize your income during your convalescence. Your ability to refuse treatment will vary by insurer.

In general, the rules for refusal will be similar to those for Social Security disability and workers’ compensation. The disability insurer won’t be willing to let you choose not to be treated if that refusal means they will have to pay you more money over a longer period of time. If you refuse treatment, you may forfeit those payments.If you are receiving any sort of disability payment and wish to refuse any sort of treatment, be sure you take the right steps to make that treatment refusal decision.

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Don’t neglect your customers complain

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When a customer presents you with a complaint, keep in mind that the issue is not personal; he or she is not attacking you directly but rather the situation at hand.

Think about the times when your customers have complained about an inconvenience. There is a great opportunity for improvement if you have ever responded.

If you know that something is annoying your customers, change it.

  • The climate of a business needs to be set with the comfort of the customers in mind. If multiple customers complain about being too hot or cold, adjust the settings.
  • Banking customers need pens. When they are chained to the counter, it sends a message to customers that they cannot be trusted. These are the same customers who are trusting the bank with their money! What is the point of providing pens if they are out of ink?
  • Why not provide a tray of pens imprinted with the company name, website, and phone number? That way, if customers do take one along, it will provide them with easy access to important information about the bank.

Fix the root cause of the problem.

Customer complaints are process improvement alerts. If several customers complain, it creates a great opportunity for your team to improve on methods for delivering exceptional service. When a business hears the same complaint from more than one customer, it’s time to identify and fix the root cause of the problem.

Otherwise, they will eventually go away. Customers are too valuable to ignore their feedback. There is no point in listening to your customers’ complaints if nothing is going to be done to correct the issue. Dealing with the same complaints, again and again, creates frustration and employee apathy. It is also a considerable waste of employee time that could be better-spent building positive relationships with customers.

So in summary, the next time you receive a customer complaint, follow these tips to help transform it into a golden opportunity for your business.

  1. Listen and understand. Always listen to your customers. …
  2. Don’t be afraid to apologize for a mistake. …
  3. Find a solution. …
  4. Follow up with the customer. …
  5. Exceed Expectations.

To grab your customers attention, surprise them

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Ways to grab your customer’s attention  in a distracted world

Who doesn’t like a surprise? The best way to form an instant connection with your customers is to surprise them. Creating a sense of delight among your customers can help them in staying connected with you for a longer span of time

Target the right audience

If you choose the right audience, it ensures that your brand has a higher probability of success. You need to begin with narrowing down your potential audience. This can be done by analysing current customers and studying demographic trends.

Thereafter, you could study the market and figure out the kind of people that would use your product or service. Once you have done this, you could look at the marketing activities of your competitors in order to identify gaps in the market. Finally, after identifying the gaps, you need to create a compelling brand copy that can grab the attention of your customers and hold it.

By choosing the right audience, you are ensuring that your campaigns are reaching customers that are already interested in the product. You just have to form a connection with them. They are also more likely to share your campaigns with others, giving you free publicity.

Keep it simple

Any campaign that you design needs to be simple. This is because complexity can often prove to be a turn off for your customers. You do not want that to happen, especially in today’s world.

Nowadays, people are exposed to brands all the time. Be it in the online world, or in the real world; brands have become omnipresent. This means that there is a lot of competition that needs to be dealt with. Often, simplistic brand campaigns can work like a charm.

People do not have the time to go through elaborate product descriptions and features. Instead, they tend to look for something that is much more simplistic and yet serves the purpose. By keeping things simple, a brand can ensure that it can appeal to the masses and grab their attention for longer periods of time.

Simplistic campaigns also help your customers in making a quick decision. This can prove to be a game-changer in today’s competitive environment. Once the customer begins to feel that they have seen what they want, they are ready to make a decision. This helps your brand in quickly realizing sales and building your customer base rapidly.