Slashdot Mirror
'They Can Sue, But They Can't Hide'
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.
Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode called "The Package," when Elaine keeps getting the shaft at the doctor's office after being labeled as "difficult."
Imagine how you'll be treated when your chart has you labeled as "malpractice lawsuit plaintiff." The doctor won't even come into the room.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
The expert whose decision in a lawsuit is most important is a doctor.
For several thousands of lawsuits, less than 10 were won by the patienst.
People with sponges, scissors, pieces of bandaid left in their bodies during a surgery lost. People whose relatives died because the doctor administered a drug that works opposite to what was obviously required, lost. Doctors found drunk on duty were claimed innocent.
Be happy that you can win at all.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
The Doctors records of misconduct and related board actions are private. Doctors want this info on others, but they do not want others to have the same level of detail on them.
i have heard of cases where ob/gyns would not accept patients that were lawyers that has pursued malpractice actions. while it was interesting to hear women lawyers bitch about having to leave their county to find a doctor, it was *more* interesting to find out how many people felt no sorrow for them.
eric
Insurance rates do not skyrocket from lawsuits. There has not been a significant rise in number of suits or in total rewards.
Why then, do premiums rise so dramatically? The answer is simply because insurance companies are required to keep a certain percentage of their total coverages as a reserve. Certain amounts of this has to be in cash, but a good percentage can be in a stock or other market portfolio. That's right: a lot of this legally mandated reserve is in stocks. Guess what happens when the stock market crashes? That reserve evaporates. Can anyone remember anything like that happening recently?
So what happens when 80% of your reserve disappears? You have to get the money somehow, it's required. Legally. So what else can you put into the reserve, if not your now worthless stock portfolio? Cash. How do you get cash? Premiums. Premiums went up beceause insurance companies stock portfolios plumetted and they needed the cash to fill their reserve.
I love Slashdot.
Damn Government, trying to censor information that wants to be free.
Damn doctors, thinking up new ways to share information.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
When I was practicing in the deep south, the malpractice problem seemed a lot worse.
Poorly educated patients would sue and sue... and eventually they would find some poorly educated jury to give them a lot of money.
Poorer people also pull the "sue card" in order to pressure the physician into signing the disability paperwork. Then the money just comes from everybody instead of the doctor's insurance company.
Davak
Lets look at some statistics... www.medical-malpractice-lawyers-attorneys.com The two statistics that caught my eye were:
1. From 1996 through 1999, Florida hospitals reported 19,885 incidents but only 3,177 medical malpractice claims. In other words, for every 6 medical errors only 1 claim is filed.
2. Malpractice insurance costs amount to only 3.2 percent of the average physician's revenues according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)
or this link: Citizen.org:
"10.6 percent of the state's doctors have paid two or more malpractice awards to patientsThese repeat offender doctors are responsible for 84 percent of all payments. Even more surprising, only 4.7 percent of Pennsylvania 's doctors (1,838), each of whom has paid three or more malpractice claims, are responsible for 51.4 percent of all payments. "
Frivolis lawsuits really aren't that much of a problem. I am much more concerned about the increasing privitazation and high price of Prescription drugs in this country.
I've lived with lawyers, and they were the most pedanticaly anal assholes I've ever had the mispleasure of sharing a house with. Sure enough, when the flats dissolved, they were writing letters and making demands and generally pissing everyone outside of their clique off (obviously I was one of those on the receiving end). They don't seem to understand that notion of "give and take" that lets people get along smoothly. I can only imagine what landlords have to go through when things get difficult. Give me a flat with laid-back pot-smoking geeks anyday. /generalizing, but that's my experience anyway...
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
My father is a well respected doctor in my hometown. He's on the board of the Foundation For Othrodonic Research, which is the premier organization for advances in orthodontics.
.agrippa.
My father pays more in medical malpractice insurance than I made last year. He gets sued regularily by people who don't understand basic principals of taking care of their braces. For instance, one of his younger patients decided chowing down on ice cubes was a prudent thing to do. He promptly ripped off one of his braces, which then cut into his lip. His mother sued my father for malpractice.
Another case my father faced was when a teen didn't want his braces and manually removed them from his teeth. The smart lad stripped off most of the enamel on his teeth as well. My father was sued because the teen lied to his parents and only later in court was it proved my father wasn't at fault.
It's bogus cases like that drive up malpractice costs. These doctors aren't being greedy. They are trying to save their practices. It's almost no different than blacklisting spammers.
I have several lawyers for clients. The personal injury ones are all just freaking scumbags. Their main complaint that I hear over and over is that the people who get hurt and they sue on behalf of do not go to the doctor often enough, or as often as the lawyer tells them to.
Does that just not make you want to scream? I go to the doctor when I hurt or when I have a difficulty that warrants it. If I dont WANT to go to the doctor, my complaint is probably not bad enough to warrant chasing down some insurance company over.
In addition, its just all about the deep pockets. Personal Injury attorneys I have come in contact with regularly screen and only take cases where the defendant has a large insurance policy they can rape.
Chuck