American College of Physicians Ethical Guidance for Electronic Patient-Physician Communication: Aligning Expectations

Billing for Electronic Patient-Physician Communications: An Ethical Analysis

This review paper analyzes the ethical implications of billing patients for electronic communication with physicians through electronic health records, a practice already adopted by medical institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic. The analysis assesses how billing aligns with pillars of medical ethics which include beneficence, respect for persons, and justice. Although billing may enhance communication, improve patient care, and alleviate physician burnout, concerns arise over potential consequences on patient autonomy, trust, and health care disparities. The review delves into the intricate balance of these ethical principles by first considering the potential benefits of incentivizing concise questions and improving physician workload management through billing. By reducing messages, this approach can potentially mitigate burnout and enhance care. It also acknowledges potential drawbacks such as deterring patients because of financial constraints and eroding trust in physicians and the medical team. It emphasizes the necessity of thoroughly examining all aspects of this intricate ethical dilemma to formulate a nuanced solution that protects patient well-being while respecting physicians. We propose a middle-ground approach involving nominal and transparent billing on the basis of the question's complexity, urgency, and level of expertise required in the response. Transparent billing policies, up-front communication of costs, and potential fee waivers on the basis of socioeconomic status can address equity concerns and maintain patient trust. Striking a balance between the potential benefits and drawbacks of billing for patient questions is crucial in maintaining ethical patient-physician interactions and equitable health care provision. The analysis underscores the importance of aligning online patient-physician communication with ethical principles within the evolving digital health care landscape.

Precision communication: Physicians' linguistic adaptation to patients' health literacy

Little quantitative research has explored which clinician skills and behaviors facilitate communication. Mutual understanding is especially challenging when patients have limited health literacy (HL). Two strategies hypothesized to improve communication include matching the complexity of language to patients’ HL (“universal tailoring”); or always using simple language (“universal precautions”). Through computational linguistic analysis of 237,126 email exchanges between dyads of 1094 physicians and 4331 English-speaking patients, we assessed matching (concordance/discordance) between physicians’ linguistic complexity and patients’ HL, and classified physicians’ communication strategies. Among low HL patients, discordance was associated with poor understanding (P = 0.046). Physicians’ “universal tailoring” strategy was associated with better understanding for all patients (P = 0.01), while “universal precautions” was not. There was an interaction between concordance and communication strategy (P = 0.021): The combination of dyadic concordance and “universal tailoring” eliminated HL-related disparities. Physicians’ ability to adapt communication to match their patients’ HL promotes shared understanding and equity. The ‘Precision Medicine’ construct should be expanded to include the domain of ‘Precision Communication.’