The website lists plaintiffs who have brought unsuccessful cases. Patients have information on physicians’ malpractice history. This evens the playing field:
The company, which says it’s based in the Caribbean to shield itself from lawsuits, hopes eventually to expand into a nationwide database. An information page for doctors on the site reads: “A physician may feel that a patient who has filed a medical malpractice suit and lost a trial before a jury of their peers harbors unrealistic expectations of their physician and probably of the health care system at large. Accordingly, a responsible physician who feels that a patient’s behavior demonstrates unrealistic medical expectations has both a right (and arguably a responsibility) to refuse elective care to that patient.”
(via This Makes Me Sick)
Related posts:
- Malpractice defense lawyers: Do they lead physicians astray?
- The choice between malpractice and insurance fraud
- Health courts help the plaintiffs?
- No malpractice contracts
- The cost of bringing a malpractice suit
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{ 15 comments }
Yeah, the playing field was so uneven before. Physicians and their insurers are well funded, they have ready access to experts, and the patients don’t even get to pick their physicians many times.
How exactly is the world’s best paid profession being wronged this time?
Gee, you’d think the malpractice whores whould be jumping for joy at the prospect of tapping this website. Now they can mine the populace at large for repeat clients. Maybe send them birthday cards, flowers, what not.
I use to think you doctors had a real concern over all the lawsuits that were truly just people searching for money. now I realize that you hate all persons who file a med-mal no matter how justified it may be.
Yes, we doctors have a real concern over all the lawsuits that are truly just people searching for money.
Yes, we hate all persons who file a med-mal.
You just stated the same thing twice using different words.
Samson, you are the epitome of all that is wrong in medicine. Do you actually believe that not just you but every doctor on the face of the earth has never committed malpractice?
That there has never been a REAL cause for a lawsuit? Are you really above the law?
Have you idiots even bothered to read the link? The database is for people who have UNSUCCESSFULLY sued. Meaning (in theory) that their lawsuits were without merit. Those with successful suits are not targeted.
I don’t understand why patients want access to a doctor’s lawsuit history (even if they eventually won) in order to decide what providers to see, but the reverse is unethical. Doctors (except in the ER) aren’t obligated to treat everyone. If you owned a construction company, would you bid on a family who had sued all three of their previous contractors and lost each time? I’d run away.
Anon 3:35, “I am the law.” – Judge Dredd 1995
No, I’m not above the law. I do however consider myself to be above the lawyers.
I agree, Anon 4:02.
If doctors have to declare suits to licensing entities and hospitals, even where they have prevailed, the same should be allowed for patients.
Filings are public records anyway. This makes them easier to access.
The only thing not clear is how to define ‘unsuccessfully sue’. Since most cases settle and only about 10% go to trial there would be very few in the database under the most stringent criteria. If one were to include some definition of ‘unsucessful’ regarding the settlement it would be highly subjective, but would include many more cases if one could assign probability of failure had the case gone to trial.
On the physician side, all cases that settle are considered reportable to the National Practitioner Data Bank, in addition to cases lost at jury trial. It might be fair then to consider a settlement a ‘tie’ because it would be largely impossible to assign a winner/looser status, and charge the settlement to both parties. Thus, patients in the Patient Databank would include loss at trial plus all who settled without establishing negligence to a preponderance of the evidence.
Samson has never practiced medicine or law in the United States. He knows about as much about either as the average US plumber knows about medicine in his country.
Remember that when considering his opinions.
This is a great idea…anyone know how to contribute to the database financially?
“This is a great idea…anyone know how to contribute to the database financially?”
I’ll give you $1000 for every lawyer you get deported; $2000 for the real assholes (Mark Lanier, Millberg & Weiss)
I took zyprexa which was ineffective for my condition and gave me diabetes.
Zyprexa, which is used for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, accounted for 32% of Eli Lilly’s $14.6 billion revenue last year.
Zyprexa is the product name for Olanzapine,it is Lilly’s top selling drug.It was approved by the FDA in 1996 ,an ‘atypical’ antipsychotic a newer class of drugs without the motor side effects of the older Thorazine.Zyprexa has been linked to causing diabetes and pancreatitis.
Did you know that Lilly made nearly $3 billion last year on diabetic meds, Actos,Humulin and Byetta?
Yes! They sell a drug that can cause diabetes and then turn a profit on the drugs that treat the condition that they may have caused in the first place!
I was prescribed Zyprexa from 1996 until 2000.
In early 2000 i was shocked to have an A1C test result of 13.9 (normal is 4-6) I have no history of diabetes in my family.
—-
Daniel Haszard http://www.zyprexa-victims.com
And I didn’t take Zyprexa, am not overweight, now exercise regularly, don’t have a family history of diabetes and also have an elevated A1C. I don’t know why, but I think it was all the macaroni and rice/high carb dinners I had to eat for lack of funds, lack of sleep, and lack of exercise during med school. What should I do, hold my medical school responsible? Then lets put all the med schools out of business and we don’t have to have any more doctors. I’m sure we’ll get by just fine and think of all the money we will save.
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