Given the success of last week’s column, I thought it would be appropriate
to follow up with another Top 10 List…
As residents and certainly as new practitioners, you will often find
yourself concerned about medical malpractice lawsuits. You will hear about
friends and other colleagues getting ‘sued’ and it is only natural to wonder if
or when this might happen to you. Unfortunately, it is quite likely that sometime
in your career your work will be questioned and a patient will threaten you with
legal action. This can be a life changing experience and given the fact that
‘hind-sight is 20/20’ you might find yourself wishing you had handled a
particular case differently.
I have compiled a personal list of things that I have seen lead to lawsuits
and would like to share those with:
(1)
Poor Patient Selection for Surgery
(2)
Failure to Refer Out When Needed
(3)
Overselling a Procedure
(4)
Overaggressive Billing
(5)
Poor Documentation
(6)
Failure to Consent Properly
(7)
Practicing Beyond Your Means
(8)
Treat High Risk Patients
(9)
Not Returning Phone Calls
(10)
Failure to Communicate
Clearly, the resoundingly important one is good communication. Most people
don’t want to sue someone they ‘like’. If you keep a good rapport with your
patients, they will understand that good outcome or bad outcome, you were
genuinely trying to help them.
If you have
something you would like to suggest for the Top 10 List, please email it to me
at
jsteinberg@podiatry.com
