Having a medical procedure done should be based on a hospital or clinic’s commitment to providing you with proper healthcare, especially after the likely high cost you paid for their services! However, a medical facility in Pennsylvania has a rather unreasonable demand for a woman who had scheduled to do a mammogram. She must “consent to have photographs, videotaped images or other images made of myself for the purpose of media publicity which (medical facility) deems proper.” An absolutely absurd requirement for a medical procedure.
“[I was] OK with entire consent form except for the portion,” the Pennsylvania woman posted on r/legaladvice. She was even willing to sign a printed copy of the form as long as the “media publicity” was crossed out and nullified. Unfortunately, the medical facility denied her the mammogram unless she “consented to the entire form.” She ended up speaking with the supervisor, who was able to check in with the legal department. They eventually got back to OP with a voicemail that said no verbiage could be removed from the consent form.
“As it stands now in order to get a routine mammogram I have to consent to being used for media publicity. They will not give me care otherwise,” OP complains, and rightfully so. She asks Reddit if there’s anything legal about this demand. “It sounds ethically questionable, coercive, and not necessary to fullfil their duty of care,” reads the top comment, with over a thousand upvotes. The commenter suggests that the Pennsylvania woman contact her insurance company to make a formal complaint. If things need to be escalated to an ethics board or state representative, that would be ideal as well.
Another top commenter mentioned how she went through a similar experience. She had to sign a waiver about having her post-mastectomy reconstruction publicized. There was allegedly no opting out, and her insurance company wouldn’t pay for the procedure to be done anywhere else. “It left me feeling violated that it was ever a consideration,” she sadly stated. “Fight like hell. If not for you, do it for every woman after you.“
Hopefully, OP will be able to receive her mammogram without having to deal with irrational demands regarding “media publicity” for the medical facility. Even though it’s the clinic’s right to require consent for legalities, it doesn’t make what they ask permission for justifiable.
