Death
The act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism.
In This Record
In the documented record on this site, death is the gravest of the outcomes that denial and delay can produce — the most severe rung of three escalating harms: disability, dismemberment, and death. It is recorded soberly, as an outcome, not a slogan.
This is not a rhetorical claim. The American Medical Association's 2024 prior-authorization physician survey found that physicians report prior authorization leading to serious adverse events — including death — for patients in their care. A 2024 survey of radiation oncologists by ASTRO found that 7% say prior authorization has led to or contributed to a patient's death. These are clinicians describing what happened to people they were treating.
It Never Stops With One Person
A death ends a parent, a spouse, a child. The legal name for that second wound — the companionship and care a family loses — is loss of consortium. The point of naming death plainly is not to dwell in it, but to make sure the system that produced it cannot file it away as a statistic.
Related Terms
Sources: AMA 2024 Prior Authorization Physician Survey; ASTRO 2024 Prior Authorization Survey. Definition is standard dictionary usage.