Predatory creatures are consistent, regardless of species. The mighty shark expects it prey to be paralyzed with fear. Punch it in the snout and it takes a big step backwards, backs away and moves on to easier targets. The simple fact is that both sharks and plaintiff’s malpractice lawyers are bullies. They pick on capable, well-intending doctors, encouraging patients to file lawsuit against someone that the patient would otherwise be thanking. Patients know that their doctors didn’t cause them to be sick or injured, and most believe their doctors are doing their best to make them well, ease their suffering. But if you give a trial lawyer a few minutes with them, the lawyer will turn the story around until it seems like the doctor was an insensitive, uncaring creep who was only there for the money. (Talk about projecting! They’re the ones who don’t care what damage they do to people, so long as they’re making a buck!)
Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD
Think Online Rep Doesn’t Matter? Think Again!
Most of us who live and work in the Real World barely have time to read email, let alone think of the Internet as having any serious impact on us. After all, that’s all just electronic, virtual reality. We operate in the tangible, corporeal world, right? Don’t be too sure about that. Many aspects of a physician’s career are intangible. The education, for example, is just represented by that piece of paper on the wall. The education itself is an intangible. One’s reputation is another essential, intangible asset. But with the Internet, your reputation (far more so than an education) has the potential to be in a constant state of flux. Even if you have 20 people saying how wonderful you are for every one person who claims you’re a quack, it’s still that one bad comment that is going to get the attention and ruin your reputation. It really should be expected, because the content patient doesn’t make it their life’s work to discredit you with their allegations. Remember, an allegation is all it takes. People think “Where there’s smoke, there must be some sort of fire,” so they move on a physician who may be nowhere near as highly experienced as you, but who also hasn’t had the chance to rack up any bad feedback yet. So you get the bad rep, and the new guy gets the patient.
Fighting Back Against the Changes
This past year has seen a tremendous number of changes in the health care industry. The entire health care reform debate raged and ranted, whined and squeaked and finally got signed. There have been strings of action and inaction, push and pull, Congress extending physicians’ payments for a month at a time, (when they could as easily have applied a six-month bandage) as the administrative offices played catch-up with the paperwork. But last month, that all stopped. The administrative agency declared that they would NOT pay on the presumption that Congress would fund it retroactively… and since then, Congress has done nothing to resolve the problem. That’s right. Doctors have simply been working for 21% less, trusting our government to make it right eventually. But this time, it isn’t happening.
HealthCare Reform Coming Home To Roost
It didn’t take long. The health insurance companies didn’t wait before looking for ways to cut corners at the patient and doctors’ expense. Remember the campaign promises that the government wouldn’t tell you what physician you can see… and that’s true. The government won’t be doing it. Your insurance company will.
The first round? Lower premiums are being offered to companies that will accept specific physicians — and only those doctors — for their employees’ care. Been with your family doctor for a decade or more, know and trust him? Too bad. Unless he’s on that little list, you’ll be dealing with your choice of those doctors the insurance company has approved. By what criteria? It doesn’t take much to figure out we’re talking about the least-common-denominator; Whichever physicians are willing to work for whatever peanuts the insurance company is willing to pay.
A World Without Frivolous Lawsuits
That’s the dream of many people these days, professionals, their patients and clients alike — a world without frivolous lawsuits. A world where trial lawyers don’t exaggerate or fabricate cases in order to harass good people out of their hard-earned money. A world where a dedicated professional who is doing the right thing to the best of his abilities and in accordance with standard professional practices is not a target for some lazy opportunist. What would such a world be like? Let’s have a look:
Your doctor would spend his time and energy with you, on you and your needs ENTIRELY, instead of covering his backside, dotting I’s and crossing T’s. What’s more, he’ll be better rested, have a more pleasant bedside manner, because he won’t be up half the night worrying about when the next ingrate is going to try to take his life’s work away from him on a jackpot lawsuit.
John Stossel, Tort Lawyers and Defensive Medicine
John Stossel recently wrote an excellent editorial entitled “Parasitic Tort Lawyers.” OK, anything with that title will get our attention. While we concede that the headline is a little over the top (although not much) the article is well thought out – and echoes what Medical Justice has said for years. Stossel begins,
Tort lawyers lie. They say their product liability suits are good for us. But their lawsuits rarely make our lives better. They make lawyers and a few of their clients better off — but for the majority of us, they make life much worse.”
Why is this so? Because people are, for the most part, rational beings. If I touch a hot stove and burn my hand, I learn not to touch a hot stove again. Painful lesson, but lesson learned. How does this make our lives worse? When a person gets burned, whatever the reason, that person will naturally avoid that stimulus in the future. If that person is a doctor, and that stimulus is a frivolous lawsuit, the future behavior will be to avoid that stimulus (the frivolous suit) by “protecting themselves” via defensive medicine. If the effects of that behavior only impacted the doctor, then no real harm done. However, that rational, protective behavior (read defensive medicine) impacts our entire healthcare system. So much so, that some studies estimate the impact between $200 and $400 billion dollars per year. That’s billion with a B.
Defensive Medicine: Real and Expensive! Here’s the Solution!
The Archives of Internal Medicine recently published an article, “Physician’s Views on Defensive Medicine: A National Survey.” The results were clear and conclusive. Doctors decidedly do order tests which are not medically necessary in order to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits… and the public pays for them, a part of the cost of receiving healthcare. In order to narrow results down to something conclusive and useful, the doctors surveyed were asked to respond to two statements, shown below. The first proves that 91% of all physicians surveyed order those extra tests and procedures to protect themselves. The second demonstrates that the considered opinion of the doctors surveyed is that they will not stop practicing defensive medicine until they are protected against unwarranted litigation by other means (such as Tort Reform.) There may be no shockers for anyone in the medical community there, and it’s certainly not a new conclusion, but this is current and conclusive information to support the desperate need for Tort Reform as soon as possible.
Here are the statements which physicians were asked to respond to:
Will Smarter Lawyers End Frivolous Lawsuits?
An excellent post from the MD Whistleblower blog. How do you know if a lawyer is any good? Of course, they’ve all passed the bar, but now their profession is lowering it. While most of us strive for excellence, and raise our children to value this virtue, prominent legal educators are establishing a new quality … Read more
How To Save On Malpractice Insurance
In these tight economic times, no one is immune from the pressures to reduce costs. Major corporations are looking for ways to save money anywhere they can. Airlines are cutting even such seemingly trivial expenses as peanuts on domestic flights and charging ‘extra’ premiums on just about everything. In some ways, the medical profession stands unique and alone. It’s simply not acceptable to reduce the quality of care to save a buck or two. A doctor cannot afford to cut corners when lives are on the line. But there are ways to cut costs.
Just as being proactive about one’s health can reduce costs and suffering by eliminating the problems before they occur or escalate, physicians can lower their expenses with a proactive approach. One of the most sensible and affordable ways to do that is a membership in Medical Justice. Like a few other things in the business world, a Medical Justice membership doesn’t actually cost money. It saves money. Here’s how:
Senate Passes Yet Another Short-Term Extension for Medicare, BUT…
On June 18, 2010, the U.S. Senate passed yet another short-term funding of physician’s fees for Medicare. The earlier proposed bill, which would have lasted 6 months and included a 2.2% increase for doctors, was denied by a GOP filibuster. The Republicans complained that the bill’s benefits were not paid for, and refused to allow the national debt to be increased. This leaves health care providers yet again in a lurch.
Had the temporary measure not been passed, doctors would have suffered a 21% reduction in fees. This “Doc Fix” (as its come to be called,) is a stay of execution for both doctors and patients, but only a temporary one. As it is, the reduction in pay was already technically in place, but claims had been paid at the “full” rate in anticipation of a (another) reprieve from Senate.
