Patients with valid medical malpractice claims are routinely denied access to the justice system because the harm they suffered is not sufficient to justify the substantial cost and risk of pursuing a lawsuit. Pursuit of a malpractice case can easily cost $50,000 to $100,000 in out-of-pocket costs and much more in the value of time devoted by the lawyer helping the patient. Consider the hypothetical patient who is given the wrong medication due to a preventable mistake and, as a result, spends two weeks in the hospital and misses work for one month before making a full recovery? Assume further that the patient has lost $5,000 in wage, paid $7,000 in deductibles and co-pays for medical care w
In a recent survey of 4000 doctors published in Medscape's Medical Malpractice Report 2015, those doctors who had been sued for medical malpractice were asked to identify the reason they were sued. The top seven reasons were: Failure to diagnose: 31% Patient suffered abnormal injury: 31% Failure to treat: 12% Poor documentation: 4% Medication mistake: 4% Failure to follow safety procedures: 3% Failure to obtain informed consent: 3% Although these survey results allow us to see how doctors understand why they were sued, the reasons doctors may be sued for malpractice are a little more involved than the list suggests. For example, the fact that a patient has suffered an abnormal injury, by its
Three cardiologists who practice togeter are facing nearly 300 medical malpractice claims from patients who allege that the doctors performed unnecessary procedures to stuff their pockets with millions of dollars. The allegations include performing "routine" angiograms on patients every six months and unnecessary implantantion of pacemakers and defibrillators. The conduct of one of the cardiologists, Dr. Arvind Gandhi, a Munster, Indiana, cardiologist, first came to light in 2008 when a doctor and nurse at the local hospital filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging Medicare fraud and other violations stemming from Dr. Gandhi's unnecessary implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators. The fede
