Currently there are 28 “never” events where patients will not be charged, which includes surgery performed on the wrong body part; mixing up donor sperm for an artificial insemination; “retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery”; and patient injury associated with “contaminated drugs, devices or biologics provided by the health care facility.”
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{ 6 comments }
Does the list of “nevers” include giving the patient the *wrong* drug, thereby harming (or killing) the patient?
Does it include “never” suing the doctor, just because his name ended up on the chart, even though he had NOTHING to do with why you’re suing? (ie a patient falls in a nursing home, breaks her hip, they sue the nursing home for the fall, but they also sue the ER doc who diagnoses the hip fracture and admits the patient to the hospital? )
Can we extend that to other professionals as well? How about lawyers giving back refunds for divorce proceedings that don’t go in your favor? How about home contractors giving back refunds when the roof starts leaking? How about financial planners giving refunds when your retirement funds go awry? How about car dealers giving refunds when selling a “lemon”? How about the president giving a “refund” when the country is going in the wrong direction?
“How about the president giving a “refund” when the country is going in the wrong direction?”
I guess the shrub owes us all alot of $$. Of course since he sold out to china we would have to get it from them.
“Does it include “never” suing the doctor, just because his name ended up on the chart, even though he had NOTHING to do with why you’re suing?”
Is there a particular demographic that seems more likely to pursue these suits? Just curious, as they seem to be a fairly frequent occurence according to these posts but I know no one who has ever sued a doctor…and have a hard time imagining any reasonable, intelligent person doing what you’ve described above. Maybe it happens, but I’m guessing there’s a lot of heavy-handed, third-party manipulation going on.
I don’t see how where can be any debate on this issue. If a doctor screws up, the patient should not be obligated to pay the bill. It seems there are a lot of docotrs who feel that not only should they be immune to any liability for malpractice, but they should be allowed to bill the patient even when they have harmed the patient or failed to give proper care.
This is no different from any other profession. If a mechanic changes your oil and forgets to replace the oil he drained out of your car, causing your engine to seize up, it would be world class chutzpah to expect you to pay the bill. And by all rights, he should have to pay to replace the engine and for any inconvenience caused by his negligence. But too many doctors seem to feel this logic shouldn’t apply to them, and any and all harmful outcomes should be attributed to the inherent unpredictability of medical care and left at that. The doctor should still be able to charge the patient for at least trying.
I see no reason to give doctors a pass on their mistakes. If anything, given the fact they are dealing with human life and human suffering, they should be more liable than someone who merely destroys an engine, which can easily be replaced. A destroyed heart is not so easy to replace.
The standards of proving a malpractice case are actually very hard to meet, and while there may be some ambulance chasers filing “frivolous lawsuits” over minor matters, the reality is that few of these cases will ever make it to court, let alone succeed there. In fact the standards of proof of malpractice are so strict that most lawyers will only take the most extreme cases, and even then there is a 95 percent chance of losing. With the medical profession killing an estimated 150-250,000 Americans a year, I’d say there is an epidemic of malpractice out there and evidently not enough lawsuits to persuade the medical profession to clean up its act. Just look at the resistance to information technology that can result in far fewer deaths and injuries from drug interactions, which kill as may as 100,000 a year. Doctors oppose this on the basis that working with a computer is somehow inconvenient to them, even though medical IT has proven to dramatically reduce those errors. Thousands of people are dying, but hey, if it means less work for the doctor, that’s a small price to pay!
It is interesting that while the AMA advocates imposing caps on malpractice settlements, it opposes any caps on settlements against hospitals by doctors who are injured on the job. The goose considers itself above the gander.
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