'They Can Sue, But They Can't Hide' 1212
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times (free reg's yada, yada) has this article about Texas doctors running an online blacklist of patients who have sued. The searchable database is at doctorsknow.us. Nice to know that you can get blacklisted for suing the doctor that caused massive brain damage to your kid (and winning)." To add a plaintiff to the database, membership was not always required.
Beat them at their own game (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Puh-lease (Score:5, Insightful)
IN real life, there ARE patients who wind up sueing every doctor in town. There are patients who try to scam painkillers off of doctors, there are patients who try to forge perscriptions for Morphine at pharmacies.
Yes, some patients do have real legitimate cases, but if they wind up sueing more than 2 doctors, do you want to take them in as your patient? Why don't you pay thousands a month in malpractice insurance, and let me know what you will do. (No, I'm not a doctor, they're just in my family).
This all depends on the doctor. I'm sure he'll call up his friend Dr. Phil and ask why the lady was sueing him. If she was stepping on every word he said in his own office, then I'm sure the doctor won't take the case, as is his prerogative. You can't sue for abandonment if the doctor won't even take your case. Besides, the lawsuit record has been availible for some time, I could go online and search the plaintiff lists to see if my neighbor sued anyone recently. So can landlords and the rest of the world.
My knee-jerk reaction... (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again, in this litigious country, we all need to find ways to protect ourselves... there are probably very good doctors out there who just want to keep their jobs.
Kill the lawyers and the problem goes away.
I can only see this as a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
Although this is slightly irrelevent, my grandmother was given bad medication from a doctor that conflicted with her other medication. She was in the hostipal for quite awhile and is still recovering. We didn't sue because apparently we wouldn't get anything out of it, because she's on Medicaid or medicare or whatever. I don't know what action my mom is taking, or if he's right about the lawsuit deal, but eh.
This is a good thing for patients. If a doctor needs to check if you've had a record dealing with bad doctors, then he probably sucks (and knows it) too.
i give doctors a little credit (Score:4, Insightful)
This is absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Two weeks ago, the MA legislature passed a bill called Taylor's Law, that orginally called for putting reprimands of doctors online. The doctor lobby got that provision shot down, arguing that it might stop doctors from freely talking to the board.
If patients in MA can't find out who the problem doctors are, I don't see why doctors should be able to see the names of patients who sued.
Furthermore, membership should definitely be required to add people to the list, otherwise, any quack who gets justifiably sued can easily add his or her patients to the list out of spite.
Sounds reasonable to me (Score:3, Insightful)
2 sides to every story (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't blame the doctors (Score:3, Insightful)
Doctors are easy targets. They have money and there is no penalty for sueing them and failing because it's hard as hell to prove a patient is just taking pot shots. I'm glad to see that doctors now have recompense against people who are just trying for a quick buck.
Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Hrmm... Could Be Positive (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the system might be good for finding repeat suers, which could bring down the cost of malpractice insurance and possibly lower the cost of insurance, therefore helping a great many people. That's not to say that would necessarily happen. But if insurance market (which I know little about) was competitive (price driven), it might work out for the better.
still, I'd hate so see someone get hurt because their doctor wouldn't help them because a previous doctor took the wrong leg off.
Way to break the American medical system... (Score:3, Insightful)
And people who go to the ER for something a PCP should be taking care of just drive up expenses and costs for everybody...
Extorsion? (Score:3, Insightful)
Texas already passed Proposition 12 [texascivil...roject.org] last year capping jury awards for non-economic damages in malpractice cases to $250,000. So parents whose children have the misfortune of needing expensive medical care must be even more wary.
I guess these Texas doctors are saying, "Oh, you'll pay a pretty penny for care. But don't even think about holding our professional accountable for incompetence."
If these doctors believe there's nothing wrong with this list, I'd like to see a list of doctors who are members of that organization.
Bad checks on the wall..... (Score:5, Insightful)
People sue at the drop of the hat nowadays....and the lawyers are waiting in the shadows.
A person will NOT be denied life threatening health care...
but what if someone with a history of lawsuits(frivilous or not) wants high risk surgery from you? Would you be willing to bet your career and finanicial well being on them?
Information is freedom, right?
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think that's bad? Imagine how you would be treated as a lawyer! Once they find out you're a lawyer many doctors will run ten times as many tests as they otherwise would. It pays to keep your mouth shut (or even lie) about your profession.
not all cases are clear cut (Score:3, Insightful)
not all cases are black and white, and there are definitly some patients who are more likely to sue than others (especially those who have sued before). Malpractice insurance is so expensive these days, losing a suit like this can get your coverage yanked effectively putting you out of business. While no doctor wants to sit there and screen patients based on the likelyhood of them suing, it is a reality that is part of the medical world today.
Yeah it sounds horrible in the case where the doctor really f'd up, but tons of malpractice cases are bullshit and really put a strain on the doctor's ability to do business.
If I was a doctor (in a non-emergency case), hell yeah I'd want to know if a patient has sued before and under what circumstances because this is about protecting my livelihood.
Then don't file frivolous malpractice lawsuits. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawsuits are, and have always been, a matter of public record. Perhaps people who abuse the system should consider this fact.
Sorry, no sympathy for those on the blacklist.
You can't see the same info about them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a treatment has a 80% chance of working, and 5% chance of killing you is it a mistake to recommend it? What if you'd die anyways, just 5 years down the road? You'd have 80% chance at life. I think most of us would agree that it's not a mistake to try it. If a patient dies because of that treatment - was it a mistake? I could see only one problem - that's if/when the doctor did not explain the odds/risks.
I see way too many people suing because they need to be protected from themselves.
non-economic (Score:5, Insightful)
if malpractice is real, the lifetime 'costs' of taking care of the incident is covered, plus a maximum of 250k for pain and suffering..
out of control (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Then don't file frivolous malpractice lawsuits. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beat them at their own game (Score:5, Insightful)
doc's pay a ton in malpractice insurance and losing one of these cases is desastating. There are tons of patients that show up with a law suit on their minds because they
a) are just that type of person
or
b) they can't pay for the service and are looking for a way to cover their bills (believe me, this happens).
just like anyone else doing business in this world, doctors have to protect themselves.
Re:Beat them at their own game (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps someone could get the ridiculous malpractice claims under control and spend a little more time critically evaluating the situation when one comes up?
Things like this exist because jobless wonders with no skills and no future see an easy out and sue the doctor for some assinine bullshit, then ignorant juries award this sinister behavior when crooked lawyers trump things up around the "poor, suffering victim". If you didn't have as many assholes out there pulling bullshit cases and getting exhorbitant "awards", the people with legitimate claims wouldn't be more than an afterthought to professionals who know what they're doing.
It's just another example of how the "legal" profession makes its money by ruining everyone else. Legalized thugs.
Re:This is US, kiddo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My knee-jerk reaction... (Score:5, Insightful)
And they lived happily ever after..
Truth is, while there are scum lawyers, there are also lawyers protecting our rights, EFF and every other non-profit group has lawyers.
I'd rather see some reform, but can you imagine the lawyers on that aspect.
Malpractice Insurance (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost of malpractice insurance is incredible. A close relation pays something on the order of $50K/year in insurance; this in a rural, close-knit community in a low-risk practice (as compared to, say, pediatrics).
This isn't "anti-consumer" behavior, it's defensive medicine. A doctor that doesn't practice because he's sick of being sued every other week for bogus cases isn't doing anybody any good.
I wonder if all the "programmers" who rail on Slashdot would be willing to take responsibility for every bug they write? To the extent that they have to buy liability insurance in case somebody uses their shitty program to do something important? No, of course not--that's why all those licenses for "Open Source" half-assed hacks are littered with "Yeah, I wrote this, but if you use it for something important, IT'S NOT MY FAULT, NUH-UH, I'M JUST A FAT SLOB PROGRAMMER, FNORD! *snort snort*" But you'll moan about doctors that can (and do) make mistakes. Yeah, consistency sure is an overrated attribute.
Re:Then don't file frivolous malpractice lawsuits. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the previous post said that lawsuits are matters of public record. If a doctor is sued, no matter what the outcome, anyone can go down to the courthouse and view the transcript.
Now, if you're saying that it's not fair that there's no web-searchable list of doctors that have had malpractise suits brought against them, why don't you start one?
This is what the internet is for! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes you can find out by discovery the patient's prior litigation history, and other times they lie. The bad ones, unsurprisingly, lie. Extensive investigation can disclose the lie, which pretty much nails the case, but when you don't, you have been stung, and the "professional patient" scores another scam.
For the most parts, doctors are honest and honorable, did as well as they could, and patients are honest and honorable, and were grievously harmed. Sometimes the injury was due to neglgence, other times not. Accordingly, the record of the existence of a lawsuit doesn't tell the entire story, not ever. But it is very, very useful information.
As a patient, you want to know if a doctor has a long history of being a defendant. As a doctor, you want to know if a patient has a long history of being a plaintiff. It may make your decision, or not, but it is information you would rather have at the outset of a relationship than not.
NONE OF THIS, however, is private information. While details of medical history are for the most part confidential, the existence of a plaintiff and defendant and a lawsuit are public record. It is just that clerk of court information isn't readily available to everybody.
It may not surprise you to know that for years, consortiums of plaintiff and defense attorneys have kept databases of expert witnesses, plaintiffs and defendants. The fact that the internet has made this information much cheaper and more readily available is, in my view, a very good thing.
Once again, the truth shall set you free.
The question is how the information is used. That is the issue.
McFacts (Score:1, Insightful)
McDonald's did nothing of the sort. They were selling nice hot coffee. Only people who did something stupid with it got hurt, and these were very few. It was not a case of "the rare BAD cup that McDonald's sold and covered up". The coffee the lady spilled was the same coffee at the same temperature that millions had consumed with no incident.
"It doesn't matter if she spilled the coffee"
Yes it does, unless you want a frivolous lawsuit. The incident was of her making,
"It's reasonable to expect that spilling coffee won't result in first degree burns to your groin, requiring tens of thousands of dollars of surgery."
Actually, at the recommended serving temperature, it WILL burn you if you do something idiotic like pour it in your groin. You can also blind yourself with a McDonald's plastic fork!
"The size of the settlement (later reduced in appeal) was the amount that McDonald's saved by continuing with a policy that seriously injured people"
It should have been reduced to 0, since McDonald's did nothing wrong. In fact, when the suit forced them to serve coffee that was too cold, the complaints soared.
"It's the method courts have used to attempt American car companies from doing the same thing."
Again, an inapplicable example.
Re:This is US, kiddo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, good? In other words, doctors will exercise more diligence and generally do things to avoid getting sued, namely screwing up. I think I'll tell them all I'm a lawyer, thanks for the good idea!
Re:I don't blame the doctors (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Speech (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind the paitents can also create a web page of 'bad doctors'...
Tragic, but what'd you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
We want a perfect medical system where mistakes are minimized as much as possible, which lawsuits will encourage. But the cost adds up in terms of the risk that this system exposes individual doctors to--basically, being sued out of business. Every doctor will make a mistake at some point in his/her career, and that mistake might cost him/her everything.
Strangely, though, the availability of insurance screws this up. Those huge punitive awards are meant to pressure doctors not to screw up, but since virtually every practicing doctor has insurance, the cost of a lawsuit is spread over all of the doctors in terms of high insurance premiums. Since the pressure isn't specifically directed to punish the doctor that screws up (more so than any other doctor), its impact is limited.
And actually, those huge damage amounts are also a side-effect of insurance. You can't impose a $50-million judgement on a doctor who might be worth $1-3 million or so. Juries get a lot more open to imposing huge awards when they realize that the direct payee of the award is a faceless insurance company. Of course, everybody gets hurt on the back end, but that rarely occurs to anyone.
Honestly, it makes a lot more sense to cap/eliminate punitive awards in these cases, and to impose mandated penalties on doctors who lose malpractice cases: revoke medical licenses, ban from practice for a specified period. It's not perfect, but it won't end up being as expensive as the current mechanisms.
Doctors need some protection (Score:5, Insightful)
It is nice to say that a doctor should treat everyone and not discriminate against lawsuit-happy patients, but that is just not possible. A physician will not be able to stay in business if he or she picks up too many patients like that.
Another thing - If doctors can't pay for malpractice insurance, they can simply stop performing risky procedures or treating patients who have uncertain prognoses. But then who will care for the patients who only have a small chance of recovery? Will a doctor want to risk having the patient die and then having the family sue?
Re:Then don't file frivolous malpractice lawsuits. (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes a lot of sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
While there are certainly people with valid complaints and suits, in my experience the system is so abused that this is a sad but logical outcome of years of frivolous suits.
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Puh-lease (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact is that people abuse the system.
Some doctors abuse the system, get caught, get sued, and get punished. If it happens too often, his/her license is removed.
Some patients abuse the system, too. They use a shotgun approach and attempt to sue and sue and sue. By using lawyers that only collect fees for winning, these patients hurt the doctor and the lawyer side of "medicine."
Does this type of system leave a foul taste in my mouth? Hell, yeah. The guys that are making money off of this are almost as bad as those habitual plantiffs.
However, I say this with the bias that I have never been sued by one of these rabid money grabbers.
The old system of doctor and patient loving and respecting one another is leaving... and that's part of the problem.
As I was reading this thread a patient called me at home. He's a very difficult case, and his family are salt of the earth people. I care for them... so I let them call me directly, on a weekend, when I am not on call. I gave them potential life-or-death advice on the phone tonight... if I am wrong, they could easily sue me.
However, they never would. Because we have a true patient-doctor relationship that is so rare these days. I care for them... and they respect me--with my knowledge and my faults.
Yeah, the system is screwed--on both sides of the equation.
Davak
Re:I don't blame the doctors (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't recall hearing of a large judgement against a doctor, hospital, or HMO recently where the case was minor.
Yes, it's unfortunate that doctor's have to defend their actions in court, but it's not hard to defend your actions if you follow best practices, and have a good paper trail.
As a side effect, following best practices tends to reduce actionable incidents.
Re:Maybe they should sue programmers... (Score:4, Insightful)
If a programmer was contracted to write software that affects your *health* and they botched it, then yes, they should be held accountable in a civil court of law.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Then don't file frivolous malpractice lawsuits. (Score:2, Insightful)
Physicians make few decisions these days. The INSURACE COMPANIES tell the doctors what drugs the can use and how many patients to see in a day....
Medical ethics are not very ethical where a company run for profit (and the last time I looked, there were no M.D or D.O initials after the name of my local "HMO") orders a doctor to treat patients according to the best profit plan - rather than what the patient needs.
Doctors (I have two in the family - and two attorneys) should stand up for their patients and their professional rights. IT is about to happen: Union Physicians!
Re:I don't blame the doctors (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we get mad at the bunnies for running away when we walk through the field dressed as a hunters?
-=mode off=-
I actually take care of several lawyers in my practice. There is usually a big "gulp" of worry initially--they I kid about it on subsquent visits and we forget about it.
Most lawyers are educated people and can easily help make most medical decisions.
I say, "Hey, I am 75% sure this is what you've got... You want to try this treatment or would you rather run a few more tests? Test X and Y would make me 10% more sure of your diagnosis."
Then it is our decision about testing. If I miss that hidden rare zebra cancer... then it is both our faults.
Davak
Re:about time. (Score:3, Insightful)
It helps the plaintiff who's now fucked for the rest of their life because the doctor screwed up.
What do *you* think is the appropriate compensation for losing a limb due to a doctor's negligence? 1 million? Half a million? $250,000? A written apology?
Re:Doctors are rich! who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Insurance premiums for doctors are as much as (more?) $100k (depending on area, field, etc). Now, for an ordinary doctor that might not be a problem -- you just put your prices up. Insurance trebles? Put your prices up again. Much the same as white box manufactures don't have to worry overmuch about components fluctuating in price since their compeditors will have the same fluctuations. Do you get it? For the average doctor, this insurance won't affect their income at all.
But there are exceptions and they're not good ones. Imagine if you don't want to work fulltime, perhaps you've retiring or have just had a kid. Suddenly $100k goes from being $40 per billable hour to $80 per billable hour, and you can't compete. Conversely, doctors putting in more hours a week can spread the fixed cost thinner, and really rake in the money.
The premiums haven't changed the likelyhood of lawsuits (which is the goal of a higher price in a free market), instead they've made doctors work longer hours and not have families. Dunno about you, but I don't see that as a good solution to lawsuits with stupidly high payouts.
Oh, and don't think this just applies to malpractice insurance. Doctors get hit with all sorts of stupid bills ($1000 for a radiation licence that must be renewed every year at the same cost -- where the licence is just a piece of paper, no tests or checks!?) As above, this is generally just accepted with a shrug and prices passed along.
Re:You can't see the same info about them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Health care is highly regulated in the U.S. Physicians can't control their overhead (malpractice insurance, front office staff) and can only control their income by seeing more patients an hour, as the prices are mostly fixed. Now, the portions of health care that aren't highly regulated are prescription drug costs and LAWSUITS.
Because the overhead is fixed, and price/visit is fixed (and has declined every year since 1992), the only way to make more money is to see more patients in the same amount of time. This exposes a physician to more risk because of number of people seen and less time/patient. Physicians are humans, and they will make mistakes, and it is extremely difficult to manage risk in an environment where the population is underserved, you're underpaid and overworked.
Now, add these mistakes to the legal system - a system that isn't regulated. A jury of 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty hear arguments about complex medical cases. At this point, the physician is under extreme risk because, even if he practiced the standard of care and solid evidence based medicine, a good defense lawyer can win a jury over despite the facts/evidence: I.E. "Mrs. Jones expected to have a perfect child but because of the delay of delivery, the child has cerebral palsy and needs $$$ for health-care costs..."
Now, despite following standard of care, you as an INDIVIDUAL PHYSICIAN can lose everything you've made in one lawsuit. This leads to further escalations in health care costs, as test-ordering becomes the only mechanism a physician can minimize his risk. Plus, the system is designed to discourage quality improvement/assurance processes that are common in other areas of modern business, because the INDIVIDUAL PHYSICIAN IS PERSONABLY LIABLE for mistakes, even mistakes of the system.
Now, tell me, if every time you fscked up on your job you were liable to lose everything you ever made, would you point those things out to others? I assure you the answer is no.
It is unfortunate that the system has come to this, because most people are understanding and don't abuse the system. But the system is ripe for abuse, and it only takes a small number of people (think 1-2/500,000) getting windfall suits to send it out of control. That's less than SPAM responder rates, but with real negative consequences, not only for individual physicians, but communities that are losing access to health care because of upward spiraling malpractice rates.
I would like to see QI/QA implemented in medicine, but it's not going to happen until the risk for the individual practitioner is practically removed for reporting errors.
For further reading, I suggest this. [ama-assn.org]
Re:Puh-lease (Score:4, Insightful)
My least favourite reasoning.
"... can we leave the editorials out of the submissions?"
Errrr, there'd be no point in the submission without the 'abuse of database' angle, agree with it or not. That's why it's Your Rights Online, the 'right' to patient care (quotation marks not required in all countries.)
"IN real life, there ARE patients who wind up sueing every doctor in town."
They leave a trail and represent an extreme case. Are these doctors differentiating, databasing only the extreme cases? Little chance.
"There are patients who try to scam painkillers off of doctors, there are patients who try to forge perscriptions for Morphine at pharmacies."
Irrelevant and ad hominem, associating medical malpractice claimants with scammers and crooks. Cheap shot and statistically meaningless.
"Yes, some patients do have real legitimate cases, but if they wind up sueing more than 2 doctors, do you want to take them in as your patient?"
Ah well, now we come to the crux of it, don't we? Apparently it doesn't matter if these people were multiple victims or sued multiple practioners in a single incident, screw the Hypocratic Oath and them again by denying care.
"Why don't you pay thousands a month in malpractice insurance, and let me know what you will do."
Chaulk it up to the cost of doing business, continue earning my six figures and try to remember the reasons for entering medicine instead of auto repair. See Hypocratic Oath above. BTW, where does the money for that insurance premium comes from if not increased patient billings? They're the ones really paying for the scammers, and now the legitimate victims get to pay again by being denied care.
Re:Cause of high insurance rates (Score:5, Insightful)
Working in an ICU, I can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a day on tests that were not even available 20 years ago. I can spend an equal amount of money on medicines that were not around 2 years ago.
Although I would love to blame increasing insurance rates on the lawsuits, it is really that our society demands that people receive the best possible medicial care -- and that best possible medical care gets more and more expensive everyday.
Davak
Because all doctors are the same person, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have *NOTHING* to gain from talking. If you have a choice between two courses of action, and one will do you no good and may or may not cause you harm, and the other will also do you no good but definitely won't cause you harm, which course of action do you choose?
I also suspect that even if doctors maintain such a blacklist, they're probably also smart enough to filter out people from the blacklist on a case-by-case basis.
Either way, the REAL solution to this problem is to make malpractice covered by a patient's insurance company. If your doctor screws up, your insurance company pays the malpractice claim - that way people can choose to pay for the amount of malpractice coverage they want, instead of forcing everyone to pay for those who abuse the system.
Re:Cause of high insurance rates (Score:5, Insightful)
- The average person is older. Older people need more medical care -> more money.
- The average person is fatter. Fatter people meed more medical care -> more money.
- People that used to die from severe disease (HIV, pulmonary hypertension) can now be kept alive using expensive medications and treatments -> more money.
We can't just blame the damn lawyers for everything...
Davak
Re:Difficult? (Score:5, Insightful)
Darl McBride Doctor (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, Remember the lady that was supposedly stampeded at a Walmart sale around Christmas? Well it turns out that she has been pulling that stunt on several occasions and reaping a settlement each time. Would you like to treat her as a Doctor?
There are, it seems people that are born to sue.
The creation of this list is just a defensive reaction against are increasing litigious society.
They are already going... (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the problem with central planning is not usually quality but inefficient allocation of resources. I might have to share a doctors waiting room with such "horrors" as poor people. I might effectively pay a little more if I choose to see a doctor privately 'right now', but that is a lot better than having someone swiping my credit card before he'll scrape me up after an accident.
Re:Difficult? (Score:1, Insightful)
So.... Lawyers are going to be subject to higher artificial selection pressure?
Can someone explain to me how that is a bad thing again? :P
Mutant superlawyers with X-ray subpoenas. Either that, or the lawyer version of the French Poodle.
Who's the chump? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. Obstetricians pay a near obscene amount, somewhere close to 100 grand a year in premiums, depending on whether premiums are capped in their particular state.
But the physicians don't pay these premiums, we do, in the form of ridiculous insurance payments of our own. Most of us end up overpaying for medical care while people who file nuisance lawsuits make easy money.
So if you don't sue, are you a chump?
Re:You can't see the same info about them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difficult? (Score:3, Insightful)
granted, lawyers must be used to this, as they must do that to everyone else every day. :)
Disciplinary records aren't secret in MA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Beat them at their own game (Score:3, Insightful)
Or in other words, when malpractice insurance is illegal only criminals will malpractice.
Ok, I'm sure it wouldn't be perfect, but I think it would be a better system than what we have today.
This is what they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now there's a big battle between doctors and trial lawyers in regards to putting caps on damages regardless of how grossly negligent the doctor was.
Simply put, they want you to pick a side and this website and rhetoric about 'poor doctors' is a ploy to win the caps battle. Personaly, I refuse to take sides as both sides are losing propositions. A real solution would require regulating both doctors and lawyers and neither party wants that because that means less profit, thus little war of attrition.
The doctors (AMA) want me to give up my essential rights to sue for damages because they supposedly can't afford insurance.
The lawyers still want to be able to collect 1/3rd of my damages.
I think this situation shows a larger problem: people getting the shaft from two well organized and powerful lobbies. I'd rather see lawyers unable to collect so much from me and see medicine socialized/single-payment/regulated so I can actually see a doctor now and again. In the meantime its the wealthy vs the wealthy at the expense of you and me.
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:2, Insightful)
For every doctor that will say a lawsuit is valid there are ten that will say it isn't - but as you say it only takes one that will say it is. Add twelve people not smart enough to get out of jury duty and you have yet another millionaire malpractice attorney in the making ...
Re:Difficult? (Score:0, Insightful)
A person is aware of what malpractice is before they even step foot into med school. It's not unreasonable to expect them to NOT make mistakes. Do people make mistakes as humans? "Oops, didn't see that red light." or "Oops, spilled my drink." sure, they most certainly do, but let's use your analogy of a doc getting called in at 4 AM only to be faced with a dire operation. That the doctor got very little sleep is a poor excuse for accidentally slipping during an operation. They don't operate alone and always have a team there with them.
The rest of the doctors who give prescriptions, diagnose people, and do standard non-emergency operations have absolutely no reason to screw up. When they do, it's not an "oops", and if it is, it's due to a poor system of checks and procedures that they currently practice.
Give me just ONE instance of a screw up that would be "okay" because "people just make mistakes."
Lawyers aren't bad! (Score:2, Insightful)
Who are you going to call when some redneck, hick cop with a highschool equivelancy diploma and a gun and a badge does an illegal search of your apartment? You were intimadated and perhaps even threatened, now what are you going to do?
You're gonna call a lawyer.
Don't fear lawyers. Fear government agents (police officers) that think they can do whatever the hell they want because they have guns and badges and attitudes of playground bullies. The Constitution has elements that require the government (Fed, state and local) to follow certian rules. Cops can't kick your door down w/o following the proper procedures. If they do, call a lawyer and bust their ignorant, uneducated asses. Cops can be bullys. Lawyers can bully them right back.
Lawyers give us (the common people) the chance to stand-up for ourselves. Don't deride them. Be thankful they're here to help us.
Re:Blame the Doctor (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Who's to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hospitals are like assembly lines. They try to push through the maximum number of cases to increase the billables. This pressure to perform increases the chance of something going wrong.
I work in a hospital. The number one concern in the hospital is not the welfare of the patient, although that is what we claim; it is the ability to bill for the services provided to the patient. Now, our hospital really *is* concerned about the welfare of our patients, but that doesn't reduce the waiting time to see the doctor, nor the quick manner in which the doctor performs services.
What most people overlook, though, is that medicine is an imprecise science. Many things are easy to diagnose and treat, but many others are transient, or poorly described by the patient (doctors rely heavilly on patient information), or even just strange. Plus, you have to consider that patients are constantly asking for drugs the pharmaceutical companies tell them to ask for, many of which are poorly-understood (by everyone, not just the doctors and patients).
It's not easy to be a good doctor in todays society, in which people are viewed as "consumers." But that doesn't excuse the doctors for slipshod treatment.
One-Dimentional lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's nice to know you're adept at expressing a biased, one-sided comment that absolutely destroys any credibilty you had in posting on this very complex topic of doctors and lawsuits.
Big deal, there are similar "bad doc" sites too. (Score:2, Insightful)
75,000-100,000 die each year from med mal (Score:2, Insightful)
That's because people die when you don't pay attention. For example, it's okay to forget to hit spell check if you're a student. You get a lower grade for bad spelling, but so what. Hey, you just forgot. It's not like it hurt anybody.
But it's not okay to forget to take out all the sponges and staples after surgery if that's what the protocol requires. It's not okay to forget to read the patients chart who desperately needs a certain prescription, but who doesn't get it because the doc didn't do the review. It's not okay to make stupid mistakes.
Because the bottom line is when that happens, innocent people are catastrophically injured or killed. Innocent people. When that happens, it's the doctors fault, and that doctor should pay.
It's the only avenue for the injured to seek justice.
Preliminary Hearings (Score:3, Insightful)
The root of the evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be the case that some people believe serving on jury *duty* fulfills one of their obligations to society. If that's difficult to comprehend, think of it this way: those smart people who feel strongly that the typical juror is of inferior intelligence and excessively gullible should, if they are the smart ones, sit on a jury so that the decisions turn out according to their enlightened notion of justice. Isn't that what the smart people do?
Re:even better.... (Score:5, Insightful)
However, in the case you spoke about - my first guess is that the Doc's attorney did not put much into the case thinking it was blatant BS just like we do, but the plantiff's attorney didn't take that stance and probably bind sided the defense's attorney with stuff he did not expect...
There has to be some kind of plausable reason for something as dumb as this being victorious.
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:2, Insightful)
The patient needs some responsibility as well (Score:4, Insightful)
Once it was clearly labeled wrong and the other time it was the wrong strength medicine in a correctly labeled bottle.
I recognized the difference in both cases. In my health care, I am the final barrier to a mistake being made.
So, are we saying that I should be sueing the pharmacy, even though I never took any of the wrong pills?
How about when I had my first bone marrow biopsy done? I still limp on that hip when a pressure front comes thru (10 years later). Apparently the doctor knicked something when the probe went thru. Should I have sued for that?
I got the diagnosis of cancer from that test, and they were able to save my life because of it. Was the trade of limping worth my life?
Common sense is needed here.
OFFTOPIC rely to sig. (Score:5, Insightful)
Income tax is not the sum total of all taxes. His statistics are valid enough for income tax, but that's hardly the whole story. The average working stiff pays almost nothing in income taxes; perfecly true. However this does *not* mean that the average working stiff pays no taxes. Most people pay the vast majority of their taxes in the form of payroll taxes. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, FICA, etc. Those are only the Federal taxes, of course. Local taxes (sales tax, property tax, telephone tax, electricity tax, gas (both methane and petrol) taxes, etc) are a hefty bite as well. Social Security alone accounts for a huge bite out of the average person's paycheck and is also one of the most regressive taxes in existance. Only the first $86,000 a person makes are subject to Social Security tax, which means that 100% of my income gets hit with Social Security tax, but less than .001% of Bill Gates' income is subject to SS tax. A politician who proposed leveling SS taxes would get my vote immediately and without reservation.
The upper 1% of the population pays around 33% of all tax money that goes to Washington. Yup, absolutely true. The thing is that the upper 1% has around 33% of the money. On a dollar for dollar basis they actually pay slightly less than the lower 50% do. Far from being overtaxed, the upper 1% are (assuming that everyone should pay an equal percentage of their wealth) slightly under taxed.
As for the writer's conclusion that we ought to consider limiting the franchise to people who pay X dollars in (watch his language here) *income*taxes* it sounds like he's just dying to establish a classic plutocracy. Those in power, now possessing exclusive voting franchise could quite easily define "income tax" to exclude incredibly large portions of society while increasing the various non-"income taxes" with impunity. Taxation without representation anyone?
On a practical note, I will point out that every single member of the elected Federal government, as well as every single member of the past 5 president's Cabinets, falls into the upper 1%. Most fall into the upper 1/10th of 1%. The economic elite are hardly underrepresented in government; quite the opposite really (side note: I refer to their income prior to becoming a member of government here). I personally would like to see just *one* person in the Federal government who falls into the "lower" 70%. I will observe that the Federal government (under past administrations as well as the current administration) seems quite content to emplace policies that primarially benefit the economic elite, while occasionally tossing a bone to the rest of the nation. What baffles me is that people keep voting for government by, of, and for millionares...
History has shown us that while voting requirements often sound good on paper they never really work in practice. Just like Communism, or lassie-faire capitalism, its an idea that simply does not work in the real world. Inevitably the best intentioned voter requirements become nothing more than a tool of oppression. In my own ideal fantasy world you couldn't vote unless you displayed a knowledge of the *facts* in current affairs. The difference between me and the person who wrote the article you reference is that I'm mature enough to know that my fantasy won't work in reality; he doesn't seem to have reached that point yet.
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:5, Insightful)
I have served on three juries (including one as foreman). I could easily have "beaten the system" and gotten out of it, but I considered it my duty.
After all, if I wind up on trial for something, I don't want a jury of "12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty".
very reasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, what I wouldn't pay to be allowed on the jury of SCO vs. IBM (read the docs, they all say "jury trial demanded"). True, true, I would undoubtably be weeded out for having formed an oppinion about the case already...
But there are other important cases out there. Like this one [securityfocus.com] mentioned on SecurityFocus which says that lending one's password may be criminal, not merely civil, if the publisher doesn't want them to have access, even if there would be no crime had the lender performed the access on behalf of the other person...
If you're always sneaking out of jury duty, don't complain if idiots decide the cases
What about (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difficult? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:even better.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. "99% of these lawsuits that people file against doctors that supposedly caused 'brain damage' to children when they were born are completly bogus." OR
2. "The total crap part is that you can sue ANYTIME after birth and claim that the doctor that delivered you caused any problems that you have now."
The fact is that profit and greed by insurance companies have driven medical costs through the roof in this country, not lawsuits. There is not a single state in the U.S. where medical malpractice OR health insurance premiums have come down by $0.01 since the introduction of any tort "reform" measure.
The next time some doctor or insurance hack tells you some supposed horror story about having to pay millions of dollars because of what he/she considers to be a bogus "frivolous" lawsuit, ask him/her the following:
1. If you had a pay all this money, why didn't you go to trial and prove your case?
2. If they answer, "my insurance company made me settle," then ask them why they rolled over on their principles because some faceless insurance company told them to.
Then, when they get done bad-mouthing everyone they've seen in the last 20 years, ask them for the name of the case and the court it was in. Then, take an hour of YOUR time, go down to the courthouse and look through the case file for the true picture.
Don't take my word for it; go look for yourself. That's the beauty of our Constitution here in the U.S.A. and I would be extremely suspect of anyone who advocates a system that wants to take away your constitutional right to a jury trial, the right of access to the court system, and your right to a fair and impartial decision maker.
Sounds like a Shyster line (Score:2, Insightful)
If it can cause third degree burns in less than three seconds, then it should cause second degree burns in even less time than that, so why didn't Mickey Dee's have lots of people running around with blisters on their tounges?
Yes, a malpractice cap..future of MDs in US is sad (Score:3, Insightful)
Now imagine how litigation will influence the minds of potential future MDs. After 4 years of med school, plus 4 years of residency, you're in the hole with around $80-100K in debt -- that's a very daunting situation to many. And if your future is questionable as to whether or not you can pay that off, you can imagine that not many will elect to go that route. Even worse, the best and brightest among them will go elsewhere in terms of their career choice and so you end up with individuals who may be less suitable to practice medicine. And so it goes back to less and less available MDs and soon the healthcare system may come to a crisis. I realize that this sounds like a doomsday situation, but the healthcare system is so wrought with problems that are so overwhelming that many lawmakers have no idea where and how to start -- some concentrate on drug costs, others concentrate on universal healthcare insurance, others talk about malpractice caps, etc. I am biased to place some of the blame on "ambulance chasers" -- there is just so much the medical profession can do to restructure and to revamp their image. But the bottom line is, MDs have been so demonized in the media in the past that their numbers may be dwindling, and where will the healthcare system be without enough of them?
As a patient... (Score:4, Insightful)
In my case, the surgeon performed the wrong procedure on me. He simply didn't read the orders correctly and screwed up.
Happily, it wasn't a kidney or leg that had to come out. But I can tell you that it put me through a lot of pain, left permanent damage, and was just a huge crappy event in my life.
Being young at the time (under 20), I was stupid and didn't sue. Should have. This guy had no real right to practice. I'd be happy if he couldn't afford his malpractice insurance. This guy shouldn't have been in the business, and it would have been good for EVERY ONE of his patients if I sued his ass off. Why anyone would want to keep this guy in the business is beyond me.
So don't tell me about doctors needing relief. I have several friends who are MDs, and they're all doing just fine and have little to complain about. Perhaps it's only the bottom feeders who have this problem.
After all, there are many lousy doctors out there. Just ask any doctor.
Jumping to conclusions-the only exercise you get? (Score:3, Insightful)
US doctors are in it for the MONEY - not the PATIENTS. Hell, my father was part of an on-going program (begun in 1974 IIRC) at Brown University to teach 4th and 5th year med students "Balint Medicine" which is basically about developing the doctor-patient relationship - because US doctors are so poor at it.
Remember - in the litigious culture of the USA frivolous lawsuits abound - and a malpractice suit effectively destroys a doctor's livelihood.
So, you're working in an industry where you deal with sick people, and those people die. So what? People die. And if you help ease the suffering of 99.9% of them, and 0.01% are accidentally hastened to their demise - so what?
This is probably gonna cost me Karma - but I don't care: It's about time for a reality check, and that reality check is that doctors are SELDOM to blame for someone dying.
People think surgery is "safe" - but the fact is that anaesthetics is an art more than a science, and people can die simply by being anaesthetised - and IT'S NO ONE'S FAULT!
One of the strange-but-true-facts is that in New York in the 70's, when doctors went on strike for a period, the deathrate actually DROPPED.
By and large, medical misadventure is more common than negligence, and accidents happen - which is a good reason to be hospitalised in the firt place!
Health care in the USA (and in other western cultures like New Zealand, where I am from) is of a very high quality - but the big problem is that the cost of administering medicine is obscene.
Did you know that triple-heart by-pass is one of the most common surgeries in the USA? At a cost of around $50,000 (at least) for each one. Now, I don't know about you, but I think a country can't afford to practice medicine like that.
Back to the lawsuit issue: my Dad was (erroneously and mistakenly) sued for mal-practice by a stupid woman whose husband died. Needless to say, the suit failed, but I remember my Dad being more worried about that than anything else in his career which spanned nearly 40 years of general practice and university teaching.
And think about this: do you really want to be cared for by a doctor who is being consumed by worry about a pending lawsuit? No - I didn't think so.
FYI, when we lived in Rhode Island, my Dad didn't even have a full practicing certificate because his NZ qualifications were Mb.CHb, Dip. Obst., FRNZCGP, and FRCS, but because he wasn't an "MD" he could only have a "teaching certificate" where they dealth with real and simulated patients.
Anyway, the malpractice insurance for his "limited" licence was more per week than the ANNUAL malpractice insurance he had in New Zealand.
Just something to think about.
How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:even better.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Then why are medical insurance companies pulling out of Nevada [kvbc.com]?
Insuring doctors in a state with no medical tort reform is a net loss. The greedy insurance company would not pull out of a whole state unless that state were simply unprofitable. That seems to suggest that lawsuits have a lot to do with medical costs.
There is not a single state in the U.S. where medical malpractice OR health insurance premiums have come down by $0.01 since the introduction of any tort "reform" measure.
You are neglecting to mention that medical malpractice and health insurance premiums are shooting up in states that do not have any tort reform measure. The rate of growth in protected states is lower than that of unprotected states.
(The Nevada legislature enacted a reform measure, but malpractice lawyers and departing insurance companies are quick to point out that its constitutionality hasn't been determined, thus the standard "sky's the limit" policy remains the force driving out insurance companies)
Re:Difficult? (Score:3, Insightful)
The grandparent poster may have poorly stated the case. Malpractice suits are appropriate and warranted when a doctor--through inattention, ineptitude, or God forbid, malice--makes a mistake. Malpractice insurance is designed to protect the physician and the patient when a genuine medical error occurs.
The problem has arisen that malpractice lawsuits are being filed whenever any undesirable outcome takes place. Despite a doctor performing perfectly, a patient might still suffer and choose to file a lawsuit.
The most expensive specialty (as far as malpractice insurance goes) is obstetrics. Are obstetricians really that much worse as physicians than other MDs? Of course not. Rather, pregnancy (and the birthing process) are inherently risky. If anything goes wrong at any stage, some people will look for someone--anyone--to blame. Those nice lawyers in the Yellow Pages would be more than happy to file suit to help ease the pain and punish a doctor for being unlucky.
The problem isn't people who sue when doctors make mistakes--the problem is people who sue when doctors do everything right...but are still unlucky.
Re:Good Samaritan laws have protection in them (Score:1, Insightful)
You must be posting from Somalia
Funny stats (Score:3, Insightful)
- of those with valid claims, only about 1% actually bring suit against a doctor
- of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful
This means that 1/100 of a percent of incidents of malpractice actually result in an award.
I just checked some of the numbers from NEJM myself. For the most part you are correct, but you have to be careful mixing and matching numbers from other studies.
From part I of the study:
Adverse events occurred in 3.7 percent of the hospitalizations (95 percent confidence interval, 3.2 to 4.2), and 27.6 percent of the adverse events were due to negligence (95 percent confidence interval, 22.5 to 32.6).
So if you multiply 3.7% with 27.6% you get 1.02% of all hospitalizations resulting in adverse effects that were actually due to negligence, the other 99% of adverse effects were due to something other than negligence out of control by the physician. So back to your comment, I don't see how 1% malpractice due to negligence is "fairly common," but that's a glass half-full argument, so I'll give it to you -- many people will still see 1% as "fairly common," after all, physicians see many patients and at a pure numbers standpoint 1% of all patients is a lot.
Part III of the NEJM study said:
Of the 280 patients who had adverse events caused by medical negligence as defined by the study protocol, 8 filed malpractice claims (weighted rate, 1.53 percent; 95 percent confidence interval, 0 to 3.2 percent).
So that means that (1.53% times 1%) 0.0153% actually lead to malpractice claims due to negligence. Ok, so the 1.53% backs your second point, but my contention is with your third point: - of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful. I don't see those numbers anywhere in the NEJM study (granted, I only read the abstracts and not the entirety of the papers), so I can only assume you got the figure in your third point from yet another study. There is no mention whether or not that number came from cases that truly stemmed from incidents of negligence. After all you could still have say 100 cases, all of them frivolous (i.e. not a result of negligence), and still 1 successful out of them and get 1% success rate.
Give me a fucking break! (Score:3, Insightful)
Doctors are losing lawsuits because so many people in the jury pool know someone personally who has endured a medical error. In my family, I know of at least two. My great grandmother got a peritoneal infection because doctors left her abdomen packed with gauze after operating on her intestines. My mother was allergic to codeine, she advised her doctor of this, when the pain from cancer was too much for her to take, she asked for a pain releiver. This doctor went on to proscribe a pain reliever to her that contained codeine.
Neither my mother nor my great grandmother sued. I would have. If that means that I'd end up on some "list" for being a "troublemaker" so be it. In the end I bet I'd get better treatment because the doctors know that if they don't cross every "t" and dot every "i", I'm going to complaing. If a lack of awareness on their part causes me harm, they'll find themselves in court.
You want to fix this problem? Make it easier to revoke the medical licenses of doctors who are hurting people.
LK
Re:even better.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a fucked if you do, fucked if you don't situation, but the other guy is fucking dead when the doctor didn't.
Or it coulda been two guys with a couple scratches (as head ons usually are...?). I hope the Doc's conscience is clear when he's sprawled out on the pavement and fading away and all the pussy doctors in the area take a hike just like him.
Exactly! (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't have both ability to sue the provider for damages and be his friend. The whole concept of "Nothing personal, it's just business" serves as a good deterrent on these patrnalistically inclined providers of the service.
Re:You can't see the same info about them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lawyer: "A couple of quick questions. What do you do for a living?"
Me: "I"m an engineer, sir."
Lawyer: "Ah, Your Honor, we'd like to issue a peremptory challenge against this candidate."
Bam. Just like that. Every damn time. I suppose I should be grateful at that, as serving on a jury sitting on a capital case can go on for years. But it was unnerving to be repeatedly rejected out of hand like that, considering that housewives, secretaries and truck drivers were considered acceptable. Hell, at one point I thought about just replying, "I'm the CEO of a major telecommunications company, sir." Now that would have done it.
I wouldn't mind being judged by a jury of my peers: for the most part they are intelligent, educated and have effective critical thinking skills. However, what the attorneys for either side really want are easily-manipulable individuals that can be swayed by emotional arguments, and if you've never been taught to think so much the better. Trust me: neither the prosecution nor the defense necessarily has justice in mind, if they did they would want their evidence, arguments and presentation evaluated by the most mentally capable people available. But that's not the way it is in a real courtroom: what these guys intend to do is win. And they win by swaying the hearts and minds of the jury, and the less collective mind the jury possesses the easier that can be. So complaining about "twelve people that were too stupid to get out of jury duty" really misses the mark entirely. More correctly, it's "twelve people that were average enough to be accepted for jury duty." I respect the people that serve the public trust in that way, but in truth if I were the accused, I would want people on that jury with the lobes to instantly pierce the verbal smoke screen put up by either side. Unfortunately, the judicial system frequently selects for the the lowest intellectual caliber: in that context it isn't hard to understand some of the verdicts that we read about.
Re:The patient needs some responsibility as well (Score:2, Insightful)
-the person who had the wrong leg amputated?
-the infant in neo-netal who got the wrong blood type transfused?
-the person who was given a "harmless" mercury-containing vaccine and promptly dies?
-the person who goes in to get their tonsels removed and dies of an overdose of anaesthia because the anaesthiziologist was doing a line of coke in the bathroom (yes, it happened)?
who is to blame for situations like these that happen everyday, all around the country?
you know, if a truck driver does something stupid and kills somebody, he would probably go to jail. if it's a doctor, yes they will take a monetary hit in the wallet, but it's not going to make them have to sell their porsche just yet.
see why some ppl are upset?
Re:Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
The second of those, which was a relatively minor accident, happened less than a month after I'd finished a one-year course of treatment for injuries sustained in the first accident, which as a 30 - 40 MPH no-brakes rear impact.
In both cases, I had to retain a lawyer and sue. Why? Well, in the first case, the guy's insurance company simply didn't want to pay. The claim was open and shut, their client rear-ended my car at a stop sign without even touching his breaks (he was driving a lifted mini-truck that was so high the bottom of his bumper guards cut through the spoiler on the hatchback of my Mustang GT as the rear of the car was rolled up all the way to the backs of the doors). You couldn't ask for anything more clear-cut. The guy even admitted, right there on the spot, that it was his fault, and I had a witness who heard him say it.
Still, his insurance company was going to try and stiff for both medical bills and car repair. I wasn't even asking for anything beyond that. However, their refusal to even meet their obligation forced me to retain a lawyer and sue. When it was just about to go to court, they settled. They knew they didn't have a leg to stand on at trial. I got my car fixed. I got my body fixed, mostly. I still have lingering neck problem that will never completely go away. I have Advil for that. The lawyer got his cut above and beyond the cost of fixing me and my car. My attorney was, among other things, a personal injury lawyer, and he struck me as being an upstanding guy. He wasn't trying to cheat anyone, and all I was after was for the guy's insurance company to meet its legal obligation. If they had just done so at the outset, they would have saved themselves thousands of dollars in legal fees. That cost gets passed straight on to their policy holders, so if your insurance is too expensive, insurance company actions like that are one of the reasons why.
The second time I had to sue was because after the bright spark backed his truck up into my car and I went to file a claim with the trucking company's insurance company for the damage to my vehicle (medical wasn't too bad, but it did aggravate my neck condition a bit), they turned out to be an offshore insurance company in the Caribbean and they quite simply weren't going to pay. In fact, they had apparently never paid a claim to anyone, ever. It was basically a scam. So I had to sue the trucking company itself. What I eventually wound up doing, on my lawyer's advice, was to use my own collision coverage and uninsured motorist coverage to pay for my vehicle damage and medical expenses, and let my insurance company go after the trucking company for recovery.
So, while there are certainly sleazy ambulance-chaser PI lawyers out there, personal injury nevertheless remains an important area of law. Without a PI lawyer, I would have wound up paying at least the medical out of my own pocked in the first of those incidents, and it would have been very difficult to afford.
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:2, Insightful)
moron.
med student's viewpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
I routinely get patients who tell me quite openly that they hope I, or someone else on the team, makes a mistake so that they "can get a piece of the jackpot". There are patients who come in faking symptoms because they want to get treated, or operated upon, and then sue in the hope of getting a settlement. This works because it's more expensive for a hospital or physician group to prosecute a lawsuit than to just settle up front.
Any time the slightest hint of trouble emerges, we docs have to throw everything we've got at it, without regard for probability or even common sense. Almost any new headache requires a CT scan of the head. Almost any new shortness of breath requires ultrasound imaging of the lower extremities and possibly a CT of the chest. We spend absolute fortunes on tests, procedures, and labs for people whom we know probably don't have something wrong--but we can't take the chance of missing anything, because then we'll get sued, even if we make the statistically appropriate choice.
A certain number of babies will be born every year that are not in perfect health. That's evolution at work. A certain number of people will get sick and die every year. That's the natural course of the human body. These common-sense facts are ignored by malpractice lawyers and their clients, whose greed compels them to place all blame in the world on the shoulders of doctors--and by society at large, which allows this insane situation to persist.
In the meantime, if you are wondering why you pay so much for health care--that's why. Because if we don't throw the kitchen sink at every situation, we'll get sued. (Of course, we'll get sued eventually anyway, but at least we can reduce the frequency of lawsuits by practicing defensive--i.e. expensive--medicine.)
Re:even better.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Keeping the supply of doctors low does not alter demand. Constraining the supply of a good or service while demand remains constant will keep prices 'high'.
Doctors DO cause problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Malpractice lawsuits would not be so lucrative if there were not egregious errors being made. Have you heard of Doctors amputating the wrong limbs? Have you heard of Doctors prescribing medication that patients were alergic to? My own wife's OB prescribed her BIRTH CONTROL accidentally when she was 5 months pregnant! (Thank goodness I asked the pharmacist for instructions when I picked up her perscription!)
Doctors make mistakes, yes. Many Doctors get sued for small mistakes that cause little harm, yes. But there is no clear place to draw the line. When I deploy software, we go through every possible scenario to insure a smooth deployment. We even further our efforts when it's a key deployment either for a large amount of end users, for an important end user community, or for a big dollar client we're afraid of pissing off. When you are dealing with human life, similar efforts should be made. When you prescribe potentially lethal medication, a certain amount of double checking is in order. When you have a patient cut open, it stands to reason that you will count your instruments before and after the procedure to make sure nothing is left inside. It stands to reason that you would check the open body cavity for any contaminants before re-sealing it. Doctors become complacent in their day to day jobs and that simply is not acceptable. The only thing to keep them in check is the potential of a malpractice lawsuit.
Frankly, I'd rather be on the list then off of it. At least then, I would be sure that a certain amount of effort would be made to ensure that I would not sue.
Re:Difficult? (Score:2, Insightful)
That is because you can choose your profession, but you cannot choose your race, creed, religion (to a certain extent), or national origin.
One can choose to become a lawyer, and accept to be viewed in a certain way, or choose not to become a lawyer to avoid certain bad side effects. It's the free will that makes the difference
rights vs. privledges (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly who's "rights" does this database infringe upon? How is it any different than similiar databases set up in states like New York that list all doctors, their certifications, where they trained, and if they've been sued or not? Oh yea, THAT's OK, because it's easy to shit on doctors because we can always sue them if they gripe about it.
You Americans don't cease to amaze me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then you develop this attitude where nobody cares about damn anything except for himself, his privacy and his own pocket. As mentalities break barriers of race, religion, neighborhood or whatever else, doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other medical staff are not immune.
Then you give a whole new meaning to the word "Sue" by building a whole industry around suing sidewalk engineers after you slipped on a bannana. A law industry that promptly regards the end-user's responsibility, whatever the case may be as sheer ZERO.
On top of that, you build a bizzare insurance industry that capitalizes on 2 things:
1. Punishing the MAJORITY of the doctors for the stupid mistakes that those [few] who don't give a damn, are stupid, or are just plain human do.
2. Punishing the MAJORITY of the public for the greedy, senseless, I-did-something-stupid-so-gimme-yer-money-lawsuit filing assholes.
If you polarize the world enough, you'd have two very extreme possibilities:
1. You will have doctors that make mistakes but mostly do their job and make your life better
or
2. Unless you're so rich you don't bother counting smaller-than-5-figures-sums-of-money, you have either very expensive or very inexperienced doctors at your disposal, which make just SLIGHTLY LESS mistakes, and which pay you (probbably less than you overpay in the first place) if they DO make a mistake.
So collectively (by not using your electoral power to limit the damage which both dope-smoking-doctors and trigger-happy-lawsuiters can do), you're kicking your best doctors, your healthcare and your own tax-paying public [read: yourself] in the teeth, in the name of those who got hurt by one of the aforementioned parties for the benefit of some lawyers and insurance agents.
I'm not anti-American, I really respect America for its good sides, but as an outsider, I'm looking at how you all collectively screw each other over, and as objective as I can or cannot be, you're dumb.
just fighting back (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, some people would prefer to spend more time actually doing the line of work they chose than in court. Doctors are among the most-often sued professionals, and the majority of cases don't have anything even resembling credibility.
Re:rights vs. privledges (Score:4, Insightful)
In one of the cases listed, the hospital knew the doctor was dependent on painkillers and still let him operate. Would you have him operate on you because this system meant someone decided it wasn't worth the risk to sue or complain about him?
It's different, because a doctor can easily cause significantly harm to you if he's incompetent or not doing his job right.
If the database only returned information about people who have sued and LOST several times, it would have been less of a problem. As it stands, it's a danger to public health.
The Other Side (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because the parent poster is lying. I mean, the statute of limitations on the tort probably already expired. (The kid's eighteen, after all.) The parent poster can reply with name of the case.
This isn't flamebait. I'm just annoyed at people who make quick, uninformed judgments. Normally, medical malpractice cases are extremely difficult to vindicate because the average jury, who just like you, hates malpractice lawyers, has to find by a clear preponderance of the evidence that something wrong happened. To convince a jury of this requires expensive medical expert testimony that is rebutted by the other side. The plaintiff has the burden of persuasion just like the prosecution in a criminal case.
Findings of guilt usually doesn't happen unless the doctor does something blantantly wrong and against medical protocol, such as leaving an instrument behind, amputating the wrong leg, or twisting a baby's head with forceps. Everything else is just too hard for a jury to understand and find guilt on.
Most MDs are NOT in it for the money. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a surgeon, and I hapened to ask my graduating medschool class (this was 7 years ago) what they would do if they won the lottery. About 90% said they would continue to practice medicine, only 2 guys said they would quit medicine. I don't think my school is an anomaly either
As far as the NYC doctor strike in the 1970s. All the sick people went elsewhere (NJ, Conn, etc), so of course if you remove the sick people the death rate will go down.
Re:even better.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider also that there are localities in the US that award ridiculously high damages to plaintiffs in such cases. Often these are economically depressed areas, and the resulting high risk of practicing there means fewer doctors and a lower standard of care for everyone.
Trial lawyer associations argue that everyone should have the right to unlimited damages, but they fail to mention that unfair and extreme damage awards negatively affect care for everyone.
Large jury awards are just another form of wealth consolidation. One person (and a few lawyers) get rich and it comes out of everyone else's pocket in the form of higher health care costs.
Re:Sounds like an insurance company line (Score:1, Insightful)
Here's a hint. Go buy one of those coffee cups that's also a mini thermos. I have one. They work well. Pour your coffee into it and take it with you. Drink your still hot coffee when you reach your destination.
Greed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:rights vs. privledges (Score:3, Insightful)
You know something is wrong when doctors need to have the ability to discuss their mistakes with their peers, thus hopefully a) learning from them, and b) enabling said peers to avoid them, *legally protected* from becoming fodder for lawsuits.
Re:even better.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had mod points you would be getting them. I'm sorry, potential lawsuits or not, you do the right thing. How many firemen do you think worry about getting slightly toasty when going into a burning building? Exactly.
If the tenants turned around and sued firefighters as often as patients sue doctors, I'll bet you'd see a lot fewer firefighters. It's one thing to do the right thing. It's quite another to repeatedly do it after being used multiple times for doing so.
Re:even better.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can entirely believe the cited case is true, despite your claim that:
The problem is, in today's legal practice, negligence or otherwise is not what determines the jury's decision. It is only degree of harm. Juries, especially in certain districts where lawyers choose to have cases heard, are wont to find for the plaintiff even when they know it's not the doctor's fault. Read this article [calvin.edu] for background on this problem. Check out this example: Poor representation or not, sometimes the jury just can't be persuaded to do the right thing.Re:Difficult? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not without some cause - people in that condition wouldn't want to spend the time reading the forms in detail even if they are able to make sense of them - but that person, by the sound of it, was being as obnoxious as she possibly could. She turned "I'm a lawyer" into an implied threat.