Speaking of pain, I am telling my story to a typing doctor. I throw the laptop from the window, “Doc, I’m over here, and this is where is hurts. Fix it. I do not care if your record is a squiggle. That record bull is lawyer intimidation.”

Your friend would have been better off with a Medicaid card. He could have skipped stressful litigation. Litigation would have only served the purpose of animus. He did not even see any money.

I have a feeling you left out plaintiff negatives from your biased case report. In the absence of personality disorder and motivation to fail for disability/litigation/workmen’s comp purposes, 90% of pain patients are functioning well and satisfied.

Hey, blacklisting dissidents worked for the Soviet Union, why not try it here?

“2) If the aim of torts is to make the patient whole, as opposed to enriching the lawyer, then it’s Medicaid. Medicaid for injured patients, and nothing else. “

Yeah, let the government pay for doctor’s negligence. That will encourage them to do something about the epidemic of preventable medical “errors” in this country. How about we just eliminate malpractice insurance altogether and make doctors pay out of their own pockets whenever they screw up? You know, “personal responsibility” and all that, or does that little mantra of wingnutdom only apply to the little people?

“3) As a patient myself, I want the stolen $150,000 back. I want it to be spent on changing the way of doing things in the OR so that the errors cannot be repeated. “

The only thing that was stolen was my friend’s life. Unfortunately no amount of money can buy it back for him. Every dime of that $150,000 has been put back into the medical system with interest, so in the end, the system as a whole actually made money on it. We already spend over $2 trillion a year on the medical industry in this country, if you think spending more is going to somehow convince the medical profession to finally start paying attention to medical errors with something other than tort “reform,” you need to get a clue. Doctors handwriting errors alone kill over 7000 patients a year in this country ad injure hundreds of thousands more. It is safe to say there probably isn’t a single prescription-writing doctor in the US who hasn’t killed or injured someone. That’s over 70,000 Americans killed in 10 years, more than were killed in a comparable time in Vietnam, proving that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

The majority of these deaths could be virtually eliminated by the adoption of electronic medical records or at least by low-cost e-prescription devices that will print out legible scripts with proper dosages for the doctors to sign. But despite the massive yearly body count from medical errors, less than 14 percent of doctors have adopted EMRs and many are actively opposed to them because of the cost, which I’ve read would be $20,000 per doctor which comes out to less than $20 billion total, a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 trillion we already spend. Unfortunately, the American medical system is not about saving lives, but about making money, so the only way to get the attention of many doctors is to kick them in the wallet. Racking up a personal body count apparently doesn’t leave them feeling “destroyed” or “devastated” enough to make them deal with the problem..

“Your friend sounds sleazy. He typical of the undeserving plaintiff rejected by juries in most cases. “

For authoritarian fascist types, the victim is always to blame and the perpetrator always to be rewarded if not worshiped. Why don’t you move somewhere where they kill women for being raped? Your mindset would fit in better there than it does here.

1) Blacklist, not just the patient, but the lawyer and the judge that attacked clinical care to plunder it.

2) If the aim of torts is to make the patient whole, as opposed to enriching the lawyer, then it’s Medicaid. Medicaid for injured patients, and nothing else.

3) As a patient myself, I want the stolen $150,000 back. I want it to be spent on changing the way of doing things in the OR so that the errors cannot be repeated.

Your friend sounds sleazy. He typical of the undeserving plaintiff rejected by juries in most cases.

The doctor “apologized” for the negligence that led to all this, but still fought him in court over the malpractice and in the end he got a grand total award of $150,000 to compensate him for a lifetime of suffering and all the bills it would entail.

I’m just wondering if you think the money that doctor saved on his malpractice insurance by fighting this guy was worth the human cost? I am wondering if the money is worth the human cost when a doctor who has destroyed a person’s life through negligence or incompetence sends the bill to his victim and threatens legal action if he doesn’t pay?

I wonder if it’s worth the human cost when a patient is denied medical care because his name has been added to a blacklist because he sought compensation for his injuries?

I can see where a doctor with a heart and soul would be severely distraught if he destroyed a person’s life through a medical error. I know I would be. But I can’t see him trying to claim our sympathies when he then fights that guy in court to deny him the compensation he needs to try and hold his life together afterwards.

When an increase in your malpractice premium means more to you than the life of a human being you’ve injured, you’ll get no sympathy from me.

With a chance for payout. There is no payout to EMTALA care. Contrary increased risk exposure for zero payment.

“How much among how many of you?”

About $15 per patient/physician seen for “free”. Add in billing/overhead it is about $35 to treat a patient that won’t pay.

“I guarantee you that attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice know far more about what constitutes negligence than you think.”

If they are so smart why do they lose 80% of the time?

If you are a lawyer, shut your foul, hypocritical mouth.

Do you or do you not support ending all the self-dealt immunities of the lawyer and of the judge from accountability for their carelessness in torts? Should the privity obstacle to legal malpractice claim by the adverse third party be removed by statute?

If torts are so great for everyone else, why are the lawyers and judges depriving themselves of their great benefits?

Until you answer that question, everything is puffery and unseemly hypocrisy.

Physicians sometimes do this. When I was working at the local University, I once fronted a patient $12 so she could get her prescription filled at the University pharmacy. She later paid me back.

I guarantee you that attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice know far more about what constitutes negligence than you think. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t take these cases on and just collect a check. The attorneys who handle these on both sides are very intelligent, and know their subject well, if for no other reason so they can perform an effective cross examination.

As for the patient, you’re right. But patients know little about medicine because the providers aren’t really inclined, or incentivized, to tell them much. That’s why they end up in a lawyers office many times – because no one else will take the time to explain to them what went wrong.

“No, something is wrong when multimillions are profited and taken out of the system on junk science and courtroom theatrics “

A devastating injury as a result of malpractice will have damages in the millions. And it’s often money that goes right back to medical providers in the form of future care, or health insurers for subrogation. So I guess it’s profitable for you guys. Now, you can yammer on about junk science and courtroom theatrics, and that’s all well and good, but unless you’ve got some cases that have been paid on that you’ve reviewed the records in you’re just talking with no knowledge.

If you’re mad about the lawyers making money, would you have them front tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours preparing for and trying complex cases for free? Against an opponent funded by an insurer?

” A good analysis in 2000 or 2001 estimated the average ER doc provided 125K annually in uncompensated EMTALA related care.”

That’s about the cost in time and expenses fronted of one malpractice case taken to trial.

“Yes, we are fronting a liability premium to see those patients treated for free.”

How much among how many of you?

“Does that make it better and tolerable because CJD said so? I can say I am tired of that so I will quit and do something else.”

No, it doesn’t make it more tolerable and I don’t expect it would. Kudos to you for being one of the physicians who actually does something about their problems rather than just complain.

Then likewise patients should only complain about the medical system if they understand everything about it. That is know all about medicine, its costs, physiology, all risks and benefits of procedures, HMO and reimbursement rules??????????????

I’m no way implying fear or anger or an inordinately defensive style of dealing with patients would vanish altogether, but these harms would be better managed if irrational and ignorance-based reactions could be reduced.

I’ve seen so many physicians with fanciful notions of what tort liability is, rely on “protections” that don’t exist, imagine liabilities that don’t exist as well. One notable, much blogged-about case had a physician in near panic because he was served with sue papers, which he so misconstrued that he thought he was charged with a crime of manslaughter. He could not tell the difference.

Sometimes I think physicians want to stay ignorant of the law because understanding it scares them. They don’t want to give up that sanctified feeling of injustice, as if it somehow was protective or, that to react less strongly would be to give up an important method of manipulating a more advantageous position than currently enjoyed.

I say give up willful ignorance and help yourself NOW. If you still hate the law after understanding it, at least then you are operating from reason.