Every year, many medical professionals have to face medical malpractice lawsuits. These lawsuits are something that no doctor wants to face in his whole career. For those who are unaware of the term malpractice, it is also known as ‘professional negligence’. It is the accident by medical professionals that may have caused injury to the patient under treatment. Malpractice covers areas of negligence in the treatment, diagnosis and healthcare management of the patient.
Moreover, malpractice is not even a rare accident and by guesses of the odds, almost half of the medical professionals have been subjected to lawsuits following the malpractice in their career. Malpractice lawsuits are the things that most of the medical professionals want to avoid in their life. Not only professionals, but also nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and other medical personnel have also been the victim of malpractice suits. These lawsuits also lead to higher authority making it even more complex and expensive.
According to research at the University of Southern California, there is a possibility of more than 75% that the local physician will receive a malpractice lawsuit once in his lifetime. Moreover, there is only one in five chances that these physicians will be able to make payment.
That’s not it, the complexity of the claims and issues involved in it are also getting higher each year because of the defense costs. Resolving these claims is getting a lot more expensive than it was a decade ago. These facts tell professionals to be wary in their profession and keep them on track of the contract they have signed with authorities. The consequences are so severe that they impose effect not only financially but also on emotions and reputation. Let’s see a real-life story of the horrible medical malpractice that is too much to believe.
Doctors in Lyons operated a woman abdomen and finished the surgery in the year 2011. After some time, the woman complained pain to doctors, which doctors ignored and thought of it to be the post-surgical pain. But the moment she started coughing up blood, doctors immediately ran X-rays on her. That was the moment they realized they should have listened to her before. The irony of the situation, when they found a pair of scissors from their medical kit left inside her body.
If we start to discuss everything from the past, it’s quite an alarming moment. But there are ways that help in avoiding these unfortunate moments of professional negligence. Here are some tips that help in avoiding malpractice suits.
Communication
The first and the most essential tip to avoid malpractice suits is through building a relationship between doctors and patients. The doctor-patient relation serves the most important role of understanding and problem-solving. Moreover, if that’s an essential tip to avoid malpractice suits, it is also an exude point for the medical malpractice suit. Many medical professionals are more likely to get sued because of lacking communication whether or not the suit is against them.
According to a study in 1992, a quarter of mothers who had sued physicians over the death or injuries to their newborns needed money. While 33% of the mothers claimed that the doctors wouldn’t talk openly to them. Around 50% of the mothers said that doctors mislead them. Now some researcher physicians who talked to mothers of newborn babies in a variety of outcomes, from death to perfect health. In this cohort, however, none of the women had sued their physician. At the end of the day, communication is the factor that may lead your career splinter.
Documentation
Along with the communication skills, documentation is also the best administrative defense against medical malpractice lawsuits. Writing the case in clear and unambiguous documentation saves the day of getting a lawsuit from the patient. The properly signed document with patients’ decorum must include payments, appointments cancellation, staff respect, and other instructions. This helps both patient and doctor to develop a relationship and not to break it into an adversarial relationship.
Remembering Patients
Remembering patients is a trait of a good physician. Remembering patients allows them to feel important in the treatment process. This trait also connects with the communication on how well you have understood the patient. Also, it is not possible to remember the names and maladies of the patients at the same time. For that, the doctors must design sheets to remember names and going through it before the appointment.
Informing Consent to Patients
This is one of the most important tips in avoiding the adversarial suit from patients. A doctor must always develop a consent document to inform the risks, costs, and consequences of the illness, treatment, and surgery. It develops a connection of trust between patient and doctor and puts all the decision incentives to the patient himself. Again this point brings back to the communication factor where risks should be discussed before the benefits of future treatment.
Updating Law Standards
It should be noted that medical law standards are quite different from social and state laws. The doctors must be aware of the law standards that are issued by health management. With the research material and its availability, it is not much difficult to keep track of the medical information. Patients are also taken into trust with the help of data and evidence.
Speaking Patient’s Language
Physicians should speak the language of the patient, not their own. This is another integration in communication skills for the doctor. So if the patients explain his condition like high blood pressure or feeling low, the doctor should not be asking him whether he has hypoglycemia with tachycardia or not. The doctors should explain the health conditions to the patient in a traditional language without any medical terms. It eases the patient to tell the health condition to the doctor without any difficulty.
Keeping Up with Patient
Last but not least tip is to always follow up with your patient. Always examine the previous and latest test reports carefully to understand which patient you are treating. Most physicians make this horrible mistake of ignoring the test results. These are the physicians that end up on trial for malpractice lawsuit and are imposed with expensive claims. The best practice is to keep the record of the patient and follow up these records until the next appointment.
Medical Malpractice Insurance is also a safe method to avoid the medical malpractice lawsuits. Medical indemnity insurance is one of the type of liability insurance. In the medical indemnity insurance the doctors are safe for the cases that happened accidentaly. To get the right benefit of the insurance always consult with the professionals like Insync Insurance.
Dealing with a malpractice lawsuit is horrible while finding a better lawyer for it is even worse. The only way to avoid being in that situation is by following these tips. There is no way medical professionals can get out of the adversarial relationship because it has become a part of a career. But in the end, these tips mitigate the horrible effects of a malpractice lawsuit.
