Okay. You were diligent and thought long and hard before you answered each of last week’s quiz questions. At least I hope you did! However, as of this writting, I have yet to receive any answers . To those of you who chose to keep your answers close to your vest (a vest in the summer?) I hope you enjoyed the exercise.
What I did not include last week with these questions was some theoretical background for each of these offices. Some, possibly many people reading this may not agree with these scenario’s, but I hope you will agree, they are possible. And if that is the case, just as there are many possible scenarios, there could be more than one correct answer for each of these questions?
Here again are the questions with their customized scenario’s, or mitigating circumstances. I believe any person reading this could easily construct scenario’s that would result in very different answers, leading me to my personal point. Unless you personally know the facts behind a situation, don’t go calling what someone else does unethical.
Ethical = 1 Questionable = 2 Really questionable =3 Unethical = 4 I punt = 5
A. An office purchases all of its instruments at the wholesale, single unit, list price and sells them at an amount the office deems to be competitive with its competition. Answer- 2
A. Since the office will be making less profit, it is likely to have a more difficult time being able to afford new equipment and training, plus it might have greater difficulty employing well qualified employees. In such a scenario, might it not be considered unethical (shirking your responsibility to do your best for your client) to provide clients with a lower quality experience in the name of being ethical?
B. An office owner and its employees want to attend a seminar that involves registration and travel expenses and accepts a manufacturer’s offer to pay for the trip. Answer- 1
B. If no guarantees are made or implied that the office will/must sell “x” number of units, etc. it would seem that the office is being very ethical since it may be presumed that the office is trying to increase the knowledge of its staff to better serve its clients. On the other hand, if a set sales number is agreed to, this might be considered to be unethical, but only if the product to be sold is provided to clients who would be better served with a different product.
C. A manufacturer provides travel and attendance at one of its seminars to offices who purchase a set number of units. Answer- 1-3
C. In today’s dispensing world, it is likely that a professional may be able to select an appropriate instrument for a client from a half-dozen, or more suppliers. In such a situation, preferring supplier A to C because of perks or incentives should only be considered unethical if the client is not being handled in a “client comes first” manner.
D. An office accepts a prepaid trip of their choosing from a manufacturer after purchasing a set number of units. Answer- 1
D. The answer to C above seems to answer this scenario.
E. An office uses points accumulated on its credit card for buying units at full wholesale, and uses the points to go to a professional seminar and gets a quantity discount rebate check from its supplier. Answer- 2
E. This seems to be a scenario where the person’s personal business ethics could be called into question, but does not fit into any category of professional ethical misconduct.
F. An office gets a quantity discount from its supplier but does not reflect that discount in the price it charges its clients. Answer- 1
F. This is not unethical since the office is using standard business procedures. The office is not required to disclose supplier discounts and the fee charged by the office may have been arrived at with the discount already figured into the office’s operating costs.
G. An office sends each new client a check for their share of the office’s quantity discount for that month. Answer- 1-4
G. In its effort to run a highly ethical business, above and beyond the call… this type of conduct could have a significant, positive effect on the business if used as part of its marketing plan or it could negatively affect its bottom line. (see A. above.)
H. An office sells all of its units at its cost and charges a separate professional services fee. Answer- 1-4
H. On the face of it, there is nothing unethical about this scenario but the question arises, how much are the professional fees and are they being properly disclosed?
Even if you do not agree with my interpretation of the facts in the above scenarios, I think everyone must agree that ethics can be in the eye of the beholder. We should all be careful about rushing to judge another professional without knowing all the facts.
