The Ethical and Practical Aspects of Acceptance and Universal Patient Acceptance

Abstract

"Acceptance" is an often presupposed, hidden core value and ethic focused on how dental and other health practitioners first accept people as possible patients. The three basic styles of patient acceptance are random, selective, and universal. Reduced public access to care results from the practice of random and selective acceptance. Only universal acceptance creates a potential pathway for improved access to care. The notion of Universal Patient Acceptance (UPA) is discussed here as one kind of applied ethical tool or clinical practice that allows for the ethic of acceptance to be more effectively pursued in daily practice. We suggest that health providers falsely surmise that they already understand and practice Universal Patient Acceptance. That myth and perspective are partly what keeps Acceptance hidden as an ethic and overlooked as a potential way to foster dialogue and indirectly promote better access to care. Without Universal Patient Acceptance, dental and health providers will continue to silently engage in practice patterns that adversely affect public access to care. The actual benefits of Universal Patient Acceptance are the subject of ongoing review and debate. Whatever those benefits might be will not likely be realized until Acceptance and Universal Patient Acceptance are included as part of dental and other health professional codes of ethics and training curricula. That is what we argue for here.