ArticleBMJ open2016
Is clinician refusal to treat an emerging problem in injury compensation systems?
Article in BMJ open, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Changes in publicly insured general practitioner consultations before and after workplace injury: interrupted time series by consultation duration and care plans in Australia.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Injured Workers' Experiences of General Practitioner Care Across Dual Healthcare Funding Systems: A Qualitative Study in an Australian Workers' Compensation Context.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Association Between Mental Health of Patients with Work-Related Injury and Their Compensation Claim Status: Exploratory Findings from the IMPRovE Trial.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Clinician Experiences of and Responses to the Challenges of Working with Patients in the Australian Compensation Setting.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Time to Service and Its Relationship with Outcomes in Workers with Compensated Musculoskeletal Conditions: A Scoping Review.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2024Article
- Using general practitioners with an extended role in spinal practice for the initial assessment of patients referred to spinal surgeons: preliminary experience and challenges.Primary health care research & development · 2023Review
- Primary Care Physicians' Learning Needs in Returning Ill or Injured Workers to Work. A Scoping Review.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2022Article
- Framing the Care of Injured Workers: An Empirical Four-Jurisdictional Comparison of Workers' Compensation Boards' Healthcare Policies.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2022Article
- Implementing work-related Mental health guidelines in general PRacticE (IMPRovE): a protocol for a hybrid III parallel cluster randomised controlled trial.Implementation science : IS · 2021Article
- Australian General Practitioners' and Compensable Patients: Factors Affecting Claim Management and Return to Work.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2019Observational
- Biopsychosocial barriers affecting recovery after a minor transport-related injury: A qualitative study from Victoria.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2019Article
- Work Disability in Australia: An Overview of Prevalence, Expenditure, Support Systems and Services.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2019Article
- Do Health Service Use and Return-to-Work Outcomes Differ with GPs' Injured-Worker Caseload?Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2019Article
- Recovery Within Injury Compensation Schemes: A System Mapping Study.Journal of occupational rehabilitation · 2019Article
- Sanitary Worker's Death Unnerves Pakistan's Health Care Ethics to the Core.Science and engineering ethics · 2018Article
- Physiotherapy for injured workers in Canada: are insurers' and clinics' policies threatening good quality and equity of care? Results of a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2018Article
- Comparing time off work after work-related mental health conditions across Australian workers' compensation systems: a retrospective cohort study.Psychiatry, psychology, and law : an interdisciplinary journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · 2018Article
- Health care professionals' attitudes towards evidence-based medicine in the workers' compensation setting: a cohort study.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe reasons that doctors may refuse or be reluctant to treat have not been widely explored in the medical literature. To understand the ethical implications of reluctance to treat there is a need to recognise the constraints of doctors working in complex systems and to consider how these constraints may influence reluctance. The aim of this paper is to illustrate these constraints using the case of compensable injury in the Australian context.
designBetween September and December 2012, a qualitative investigation involving face-to-face semistructured interviews examined the knowledge, attitudes and practices of general practitioners (GPs) facilitating return to work in people with compensable injuries.
settingCompensable injury management in general practice in Melbourne, Australia.
participants25 GPs who were treating, or had treated a patient with compensable injury.
resultsThe practice of clinicians refusing treatment was described by all participants. While most GPs reported refusal to treat among their colleagues in primary and specialist care, many participants also described their own reluctance to treat people with compensable injuries. Reasons offered included time and financial burdens, in addition to the clinical complexities involved in compensable injury management.
conclusionsIn the case of compensable injury management, reluctance and refusal to treat is likely to have a domino effect by increasing the time and financial burden of clinically complex patients on the remaining clinicians. This may present a significant challenge to an effective, sustainable compensation system. Urgent research is needed to understand the extent and implications of reluctance and refusal to treat and to identify strategies to engage clinicians in treating people with compensable injuries.
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