A hard part of referring high risk patients is finding someone to take them!!!! We have our own crisis where there is no physician willing to take the high risk OB, nuero or spine cases.

We can find plenty of attorneys to take them though!

I'm referring to anyone who makes claims about their own studies without showing the methodology behind them.

Doctors in Canada refusing to take patients = single payer failure. Doctors in NY refusing to take patients = malpractice insurance failure.

Note that doctors in NY refusing to take patients can never be US healthcare system failure as that would require comparing apples to apples ... but that's the way it is here on Kevin MD :).

Anon 7:16, I did read the article. I'm just pointing out that when there's a problem anywhere else it's always a failure of a system, whereas when there's a problem in the US it's always a problem of liability ... you do see that that seems quite predictable on this blog right?

Kevin--

The placement of google ads for malpractice attorneys on your site just doesn't seem right.

Anon 1:16 - malpractice claims exist because of greed, not because of malpractice. Greed is a deadly sin, and is the same motivator that lies behind highway robbery, insurance fraud and pocket picking. Malpractice suits cause more damage to society and the individual, though.

There is an exception: some of the claims are motivated by hate, which is a sin also. These claims are thus moral relatives of murder, they aim to destroy another human being.

But actual malpractice? As when a doctor wilfully or recklessly injures the patient instead of trying to heal him? When the doctor wilfully or recklessly does less than the best of his ability?

No, that's a rare phenomenon.

I'm sorry Samson but you are wrong and so is the doc in this Times Union article.

The problem is that there is a need for a no fault type of med/mal insurance. There are inadequate docs who should not be in medicine and they are spoiling it for the rest of you. You need to police your own and report them. Physicians need to be reviewed, critiqued and disciplined just like everyone else.

I live in NYS and the problem is the injustice that harmed patients receive. You only hear about large awards. No one is reporting on the rest of the story because the hospitals "pay off" the newspapers with full page adds of their greatness and of their ills. Put healthcare in the same boat with education where you can't advertise and you will see a truer picture of what really happens.

You may want to question the author why physcians in his "group" are expert witnesses for area lawfirms. Attorneys deny assistance to patients because they "need" them for more profitable cases. Someone is making money here and it's not a patient that was harmed.

"A hard part of referring high risk patients is finding someone to take them!!!!"
Some doctors refer high risk patients to the nearest medical school/university.