Frustrated by Malpractice Cases, Doctor Proposes Not Treating Some Lawyers

[CShine]

CHICAGO (AP) - A doctor's proposal asking the American Medical Association to endorse refusing care to attorneys involved in medical malpractice cases drew an angry response from colleagues Sunday at the annual meeting of the nation's largest physicians group. Many doctors stood up to denounce the resolution in passionate speeches - even after its sponsor, Dr. J. Chris Hawk, asked that it be withdrawn.

Hawk, a South Carolina surgeon, said he made the proposal to draw attention to rising medical malpractice costs. The resolution asks that the AMA tell doctors that - except in emergencies - it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses.

"It expresses the frustration I have with a broken system," said Hawk. He said doctors are leaving his state or retiring early because of insurance premiums - making it harder for patients to receive care.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB3D8KUFVD.html

[KittyWampus]

1. Why Not Eliminate The Few Doctors Who Are Responsible

for the great majority of malpractise suits?

[PaDUer]

3. I concur....

there's quite a few around and should have their licenses revoked.

[Ediacara]

4. including the yahoo who

proposed this denial of service....

[PaDUer]

14. Absolutely...

guess the Hipocratic Oath is meaningless to them!

Send them to Iraq, * will love them!

[Warpy]

6. GMTA! 5% of docs are responsible for 50% of

malpractice awards. Why not dump these obviously incompetent docs, shuffle them off to some sort of administrative work, keep them from hurting people who come to them for help?

I suppose that would make too much sense.

[lil-petunia]

23. wrong!

It is much worse than that. Closer to 3% and 68% of the total verdicts. That is, if you look at verdicts against MDs, and don't mix in Nurse and hospital verdicts.

3% of all docs - protected by their brothers behind masks - never made accountable. Yet, they benefit from great malpractice insurance rules which charges them the same amount as someone who has never had a claim.

[jayfish]

13. We Always Hear About Accountability For Educators,...

why don't we expect the same for our medical professionals?

Jay

[kanrok]

2. They should be boycotting thier malpratice carriers

[liberalhistorian]

10. Exactly!

It's the fucking INSURANCE companies that are the real problem. Rates have not gone down even in many states that have enacted so-called "malpractice reform", capped limits on awards, etc., and many doctors are starting to see this. Insurance companies have been badly mismanaged during the past decade,(bad investments, etc.) and are having to recoup their losses, losses which have nothing whatsoever to do with malpractice cases.

Of course, this wouldn't be much of a change for them since they already won't treat an awful lot of people who need care but who are uninsured or don't have any money. And they totally ignore the REAL crisis, which is millions of Americans who have no insurance and no access to care, or who are forced to file bankruptcy and/or lose what little assets they have due to medical bills, the over 18,000 who die every year as a direct result of no insurance, etc., etc., etc. You'd think they'd realize that if we had a system to take care of such people, that that would mean the docs would actually get even MORE money than they already do and they should be scrambling to help enact reform. That's what finally got Medicare and Medicaid passed after decades of resistance from doctors, they finally realized that it meant they'd actually get a lot more money.

[DavidFL]

21. Not to mention...

that I think "tort reform" and caps on damages are a continued erosion of our 7th Amendment constitutional right to have a civil trial by a jury of our peers. Legislation which sets caps essentially abrogates the jury's power to decide damages in an amount they see fit to compensate a litigant for their loss in cases where the jury's verdict would exceed the cap. Texas is also a great example of where "tort reform" has nearly eliminated people's rights to commence state-level class action suits against corporations because it's damn near impossible. I think that these, as well as the med mal frenzy, are just more arguments why the legal fiction that corporations are "persons" should be eliminated.

[punpirate]

5. This probably won't go anywhere...

... but it will be telling, if it does. What happens when lawyers begin to tell doctors accused with malpractice that they won't defend them?

Around, and around it goes.

I found an interesting article by the head of the Texas Trial Lawyers' Association that said, basically, why won't the AMA and the state medical examiners' boards go to the root of medical malpractice--the bad doctors. In that article, written around 2002, that there'd been 6,022 cases of malpractice forwarded to the Texas Medical Examiners' Board in a year and a half or so, and none had been investigated. And, said further, that no doctor had lost a license in Texas since 1989.

This is supposedly all about malpractice insurance rates, which doctors don't want to pay. But, their focus is on lawyers, supposedly bringing frivolous suits. If the suits were, in fact, frivolous, they'd be thrown out. Their complaint ought to be with the insurers, who are trying to make up for some very bad pricing policies in the `80s (based on unrealistic rate of return on investment strategies).

Texas recently took the bait and got through some tort reform, telling everyone that it would cause a reduction in health care costs. Guess what? It didn't.

It's no wonder that the spot in the Texas legislature gallery occupied by the insurance lobbyists is known as "the owners' box."

[Hamlette]

7. I hate the "malpractice myth".

http://www.makethemaccountable.com/myth/RisingCostOfMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.htm

"Yet between 1988 and 1998, U.S. health-care costs increased 74.4 percent while malpractice premiums increased 5.7 percent. The total premiums paid in 2000 added up to 0.56 of the nation's total health-care bill.

<snip>

New information in a national database that collects reports of every judgment and settlement paid in malpractice demonstrates just the opposite. An analysis of that data by a consumer-advocacy group reveals malpractice payouts decreased by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, doctors" premiums didn't go down.

[Sporadicus]

8. What About Their Hypocrit...err...Hippocratic Oath?

I heard this on NPR the other day. In addition, the story went on to say that doctors were compiling a database of patients who had filed malpractice suits in order to deny services to them. Apparently, these plans were dropped after THEIR lawyers advised that they could get their asses sued off.

[liberalhistorian]

12. WTF? Jesus H. Christ on rollerblades,

are you SERIOUS about that database? You have GOT to be fucking KIDDING me, right? Just who the hell do those arrogant, egotistical fucks think they are? They're human like all the rest of us and prone to mistakes like all the rest of us.

It's bad enough that they aren't doing a damn thing to help reform the current totally fucked-up system so that the millions who don't have access to care can get it without worrying about losing what little they have or being thrown in jail because they can't pay the fucking bill.

It's bad enough that too many of them refuse to treat those who don't have money no matter how badly they may need it or, if they do, they sue the shit out of them to recover even small bills, money the person often just does not have.

It's bad enough that they couldn't care less about anyone without money and insurance, and that you NEVER hear a peep of outrage from them over the documented 18,000 deaths a year determined to be a direct result of being uninsured and the likely thousands more.

It's bad enough that they're telling people diagnosed with cancer but who don't have insurance or money that it's just tough luck, they'll have to wait until they get some money or insurance.

But to compile such a database while doing NOTHING about those doctors who are responsible for much of the malpractice, indeed even covering up for them, and to blame the patients when it's usually the doctor who's at fault in the first place, is just too fucking much. I never thought doctors could fall even lower on my respect scale, but you better believe that that's now the case.

[Sporadicus]

16. Couldn't Get the Article From NPR Without Ordering a Transcript

but I found this article:

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/legislative_issues/federal_issues/hot_issues_in_congress/legal_reform/meritless_litigation.htm

'In a setback to efforts by physicians at self-help medical malpractice tort reform, a new national database set to track litigious patients, attorneys and expert witnesses was pulled from the Internet last week. After opening in November under the direction of a Texas physician, the site’s slogan read, "they can sue, but they can’t hide." For a nominal monthly fee, physicians were encouraged to query the database of public records of litigation in order to "assess the risk of offering services to clients or potential clients." In a nutshell, a physician could learn the litigation proclivities of potential patients before, rather than after, rendering services.'

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. OK, what about Hippocratic Oaths?

There isn't just one version of a modern Hippocratic Oath; not all doctors take it (though nearly all new ones do now, it seems).

What is ethically different between refusing to treat these lawyers, except in an emergency, and refusing to treat people who cannot pay for the doctor's services?

From this typical modern oath, all I can find that is relevant to this argument is:

"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."

You might argue that this implies treating anyone who is sick (but in which case they should never refuse to treat someone because of lack of money); but you can also argue that it just refers to what is proper treatment (it doesn't, for instance, say "all the sick").

[gmoney]

9. The lawyers aren't the problem...

The insurance companies are. Don't treat THOSE fuckers.

[Torgo4]

11. Hate ALL Those Dam Trial Lawyers!!

Except mine!!!
They fight for truth, Justice...etc.
i.e. ME!

Maybe the trial lawyers should refuse to represent the physicians when they are accused of malpractice! Or when their (doctor's) kid gets pinched for DUI or blow!

Professional payback can be rough!

[HuckleB]

15. It's one doc, denounced vehemently by his colleagues.

This isn't much of a story. Yet it works. People get excited by it. I guess it sells, but it doesn't create understanding.

How sad.

[lil-petunia]

24. Isn't he from the same state

that wants to secede from the union? Hey, put all those religious freepers all in the same basket, and hmmmm. . . No, the visuals I am imagining are too cool. Can't go there.

[HuckleB]

25. Do you have a point?

How many people in that state actually want to secede? Again, it's a small group of nutcases. Why the generalizing?

[SayitAintSo]

27. Ahem...not ALL SC'ers are nut cases ... we have a growing DU contingent ..

Puhleeze don't generalize ... we need all the help we can get down here without folks piling on ....

[MikeG]

17. This lawyer proposes not representing bad doctors.

[HuckleB]

18. What an original and insightful response.

:eyes:

[MikeG]

19. Why thank you. I thought so.

Unless they have cash up front. Principles only go so far.

[sendero]

22. This is a case of misplaced anger IMHO...

... doctors are getting SQUEEZED. Their costs go up and up, and the amounts they can charge is going down.

Their adminstrative load has skyrocketed as the insurance companies have offloaded most of the admin work onto them. The next time you go to your doctor's office, count the people. At mine, there are 2 doctors and about 5 support staff.

Doctors are between a rock and a hard place and they are lashing out. They see no chance of changing the HMO/PPO insurance contract situation, so they go for the easy whipping boy.

I think the insurance companies, both medical and malpractice, are largely to blame. But even that is a simplistic argument. Insurance companies are getting the squeeze from employers who cannot foot 20% annual increases in premiums forever.

It is a tough situation all around, one that will not succumb to simple "one bad guy" solutions.

[Sandpiper]

26. If this ever does get adopted by the AMA, the ABA should counter

By saying that attorneys should refuse to represent doctors being sued for malpractice and make them act as their own legal counsel.

[HuckleB]

28. Again, it's one doctor, rebuffed vehemently by his colleagues.

It's a non-issue.

[Sandpiper]

29. I understand

I read the article and don't think that the AMA would ever go for this.

[AngryAmish]

30. Doctors already shun colleagues who testify against other docs

in malpractice cases. Try and find a doctor to testify against a fellow doc in the same town. The ones willing to do it usually do it in another metropolitan area. (So need NY doc to testify against a Chicago doc).