Medical malpractice lawsuits are public records. And sometimes they make the news. Sometimes they’re online. If a case was filed in court, it’s accessible to the public. (Arbitration agreements, on the other hand, are private matters. That’s another story for another day.)
Say you’ve scheduled a surgery on a new patient. You go over the risks, benefits, and options.
They come back to speak with your staff about process, payment, recovery…more details.
They have one final question.
They want to know about a medical malpractice lawsuit from ten years ago.
Is this a red flag? Idle curiosity? Something else?
If the old case was based on the same type of surgery that generated the litigation a decade ago, the new patient may just be worried about the risks of this procedure. That seems reasonable. If they believed you were really unsafe, they likely would have already cancelled the case and gone elsewhere. They wouldn’t be asking questions.
This is probably a good time to double down, again discussing the risks of the procedure, and explaining what could happen.
Sometimes a patient will not appreciate what is meant by probability. If you say the risk of a specific complication is 3%, that only applies to a population of patients. A specific patient will either experience the complication. Or they won’t. To the specific patient, individual risk instantiated in the real world is either 0% or 100%.
Importantly, the patient is asking you about this specific risk. This is an excellent opportunity for the patient to revisit what their tolerance for risk actually is. Every patient is different. Some can accept a low risk. Others cannot.
Of course, you’ll want the patient to understand that most complications are not de facto evidence of professional liability. That’s the reason the informed consent process is important.
So, in my estimation, their inquisitiveness is not a red flag. It’s a good time to educate.
What do you think?
