" Patients unwilling to try to quit tobacco use should be provided with a brief intervention designed to increase their motivation to quit.
One important conclusion of this guideline is that the most effective way to move clinicians to intervene is to provide them with information regarding multiple efficacious treatment options and to ensure that they have ample institutional support to use these options. Indeed, in this guideline, the panel encourages a culture of health care in which failure to treat tobacco use—the chief cause of preventable disease and death—constitutes an inappropriate standard of care."
I found it at:
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco/treating_tobacco_use.pdf
Now they are threatening health care providers with lawsuits if they do not act as "Big Brother". How long will it be before doctors begin to refuse to treat smokers as patients, or increase the cost of office visits for smokers? (even for non smoking-related visits)
“http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco/treating_tobacco_use.pdf
Now they are threatening health care providers with lawsuits if they do not act as “Big Brother”. How long will it be before doctors begin to refuse to treat smokers as patients, or increase the cost of office visits for smokers? (even for non smoking-related visits)”
Yep. 196 pages long, the new standard of care. cram it in with all the other things (firearms, seat belts, etc) in that 10-12.5 minute visit, or risk giving it all up.
FRiend, doctors will refuse smokers. There is no legal way, if you take Medicare, to “increase the cost” to cover a patient who smokes. The fee is fixed - and other insurance companies pay at rates indexed to Medicare.
It's probably already happening here. We know for a fact it is already happening in Great Britain.
3 years ago my husband had to take me to the ER on a Friday because I had broken my ankle and our GP doesn't have Friday office hours. One of the first questions I was asked (after name and insurance info) was did I smoke. What does smoking have to do with a broken ankle?
To be honest, had I been smoking at the time I most likely would not have broken my ankle. Had I had a lit cigarette I would have turned a light on to put it in an ashtray, instead of crossing a dark room and tripping.