Reference no: EM133187186

Use applied ethical theory and outside evidence to analyze the ethical dilemma identified below. Answer the following questions:

How do you manage this situation? 

What other actions can and/or should be taken to resolve the ethical dilemma?

You are a general manager of a small physical therapy clinic.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in mid-2020 your clinic started a program where clients can sign up for in-home visits from their physical therapist rather than coming into the facility for an extra fee. The in-home service proved to be a huge boon to the company as your clients worried about exposure to the virus. In fact, at the height of the pandemic the number of clients who were willing to pay extra

for the in-home service vastly outnumbered the number of clients who were willing to come into the facility.

Even while the pandemic has significantly slowed down, your clinic has retained the in-home service, as customer services and sales data shows that the in-home service is still extremely popular among your clientele. And the service has served profitable from the supply-side as well, as the extra pay to therapists for in-home visits does not outweigh the high costs of deep-cleaning equipment after every use and keeping the brick-and-mortar clinic open for longer hours each day. Since only a handful of your clientele that have still been coming into the facility have expressed an unwillingness or inability to moving their appointments in-home-especially since all of the insurance companies that you primarily work with are willing to pay the extra fee for in-home service-you plan on closing the clinic entirely and transitioning to an in-home only clinic service.

Unfortunately, however, this decision has created a problem for one of your physical therapists, Brittany, who has expressed to you that she is not comfortable doing in-home visits under any circumstances. Brittany is immunocompromised and is extremely worried about her potential exposure to COVID-19. Additionally, while Brittany has been hesitant to say much about her previous job to you or any of her coworkers, the physical therapy community in your local area is small, and you have heard through rumors that Brittany left her previous in-home only clinic job to work for you after a traumatic incident in a client's home. You do know that Brittany expressed during her interview with you that the reason why she left her previous job for opportunities with you was due to a strong preference to work in a more neutral location than a client's home.

Complicating matters is the fact that due to competition from other clinics and the rising costs of labor-particularly with the qualifications and licensures needed to perform the services your clinic provides-your firm has been unable to hire additional therapists, forcing Brittany and her two co-workers to take on larger patient loads than you and they would prefer. With the new clinic structure, you fear that you will be unable to accommodate Brittany's strong preference to work solely in-clinic for much longer-especially if you have to lose another therapist before any new staffers can be hired. And if Brittany leaves, the workload for your remaining two therapists will have to grow substantially unless you are somehow able to hire a replacement.