Social Work Ethics Case Study
According to the National Association of Social Workers, it is a social workers duty to meet the basic needs of all human beings including those who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty (NASW, n.d.). To better perform their duties, social workers have a strict code of ethics that they need to follow that accounts for the well-being of their clients including mental illnesses. Social workers practice in many different settings such as in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and even in prisons. These practices are provided by managed health care systems which help to finance mental health services. The goal of managed health care systems such as the Health Maintenance organization (HMO), is to provide mental health services at an affordable
…show more content…
The problem with HMO’s is that they are more interested in making money than they are in the well-being of their patients. They have regulations that make it hard for social workers to do the job that they are entailed to do. These regulations include limiting the number of visits that outpatients have, increasing medications of patients, cutting back on the money that is used yearly for their patients, increasing deductibles and copayments among various other regulations (Zastrow, 2010, p. 155). All of these regulations are put into place to save the organization money and it makes it hard for social workers to do their job effectively. For example, due to the fact that outpatients have limited days to see a mental health professional, social workers cannot focus on the problems that their patients have. To compensate for this, they give their patients medications to try and mask the symptoms. This is not what the social workers code of ethics is for, they do not do this type of work to benefit from the proceeds, but to help people who have needs. Another issue with HMO’s is that social workers are breaching their code of ethics by violating the privacy of their patients. They are being obligated to give out information on their patients to third party payers by HMO’s (Zastrow, 2010, p. 156). These are just some of the issues that these regulations have brought upon social workers and it is something that needs to be
The problem with HMO’s is that they are more interested in making money than they are in the well-being of their patients. They have regulations that make it hard for social workers to do the job that they are entailed to do. These regulations include limiting the number of visits that outpatients have, increasing medications of patients, cutting back on the money that is used yearly for their patients, increasing deductibles and copayments among various other regulations (Zastrow, 2010, p. 155). All of these regulations are put into place to save the organization money and it makes it hard for social workers to do their job effectively. For example, due to the fact that outpatients have limited days to see a mental health professional, social workers cannot focus on the problems that their patients have. To compensate for this, they give their patients medications to try and mask the symptoms. This is not what the social workers code of ethics is for, they do not do this type of work to benefit from the proceeds, but to help people who have needs. Another issue with HMO’s is that social workers are breaching their code of ethics by violating the privacy of their patients. They are being obligated to give out information on their patients to third party payers by HMO’s (Zastrow, 2010, p. 156). These are just some of the issues that these regulations have brought upon social workers and it is something that needs to be