Ethical dilemmas are common issues that every businessman has to face at their working environment. It is not such an easy task for businessman to have an ethical decision making, to choose what the “right” thing to do. In this following factual scenario, John also has to face some ethical dilemmas in his working environment and have difficulty to find appropriate solution. After a brief summary of the facts, I will discuss some ethical dilemmas which John is confronting and some approaches to ethical reasoning.
John is a Patient Accounts Manager of Greensburg Hospital with responsibility to monitor the charges which accrue to a patient’s account while the patient is hospitalized. He discovers an unusual bill listed on a patient’s account without charged. This patient is Izzy Indigent, who is an unemployed Medicaid one and she has been hospitalized for several day. She gave her children the supply of body lotion, soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, and Kleenex in the hospital when they come to visit her daily and asked for refilling on the next day. John asked the supervising nurse and received the answer that she knew about it but let it go. The prognosis is that the hospitalization of Ms. Indigent will last several more weeks.
In this situation, John has to face an ethical dilemma which is whether his personal value system are versus his professional responsibiities, whether he should keep silent about the charges on Indigent’s account or he should report it accurately and truthfully. Izzy Indigent is an unemployment woman and her life seems to be very difficult. However, John is an accountant and one of the most important responsibilities of an accountant is truthful. Another ethical dilemma is that whether or not John should report Izzy’s action to the supervisor whose responsibility for managing the supply of those items of the hospital. If John reports this, Izzy is