The first rule of medicine “Primum non nocere,” “First do no harm,” binds not just doctors but all who serve in the health field, including actuaries. Perhaps especially actuaries since a bad doctor can only harm a few people but a bad actuary can harm millions. Therefore, the office should adopt a firm rule of never calculating in an estimate the resulting added cost resulting from saving a person’s life. Calculators are appropriate for determining how much doctors and hospitals should be paid, calculators are not appropriate for determining how long people should be allowed to live.
