Court Rules that Doctor-Patient Relationship not Needed to Sue.

[alphaholic06]

https://www.empr.com/home/features/court-rules-that-states-medical-malpractice-act-can-apply-to-nonpatients/2/

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[BoardingDoc]

https://www.empr.com/home/features/court-rules-that-states-medical-malpractice-act-can-apply-to-nonpatients/2/

This is utterly insane. The TL;DR is: Doc wrote an opioid Rx for some lady. She crashed her car and killed the occupants of the other car. Family member of the people killed sued the doc who wrote the opioid Rx.

Again, wow.

 

[RustedFox]

This is utterly insane. The TL;DR is: Doc wrote an opioid Rx for some lady. She crashed her car and killed the occupants of the other car. Family member of the people killed sued the doc who wrote the opioid Rx.

Again, wow.

Yep. This is America in 2022.
They want it every way they can. They want 100% pain relief, 100% "patient satisfaction", and 100% nothing bad to ever happen, to anyone. Anywhere. Ever.

 

[Birdstrike]

"You can be sued for anything, all of the time" has been the rule for as long as I can remember. Protect yourself, document, follow the standard of care and pay your insurance premium on time. Other than that, don't worry about what you can't control.

 

[RustedFox]

"You can be sued for anything, all of the time" has been the rule for as long as I can remember. Protect yourself, document, follow the standard of care and pay your insurance premium on time. Other than that, don't worry about what you can't control.

You're not wrong, but this doesn't help the ever-growing hate for society that is the primary cause of burnout; no matter what field you're in.

 

[Angry Birds]

This is utterly insane. The TL;DR is: Doc wrote an opioid Rx for some lady. She crashed her car and killed the occupants of the other car. Family member of the people killed sued the doc who wrote the opioid Rx.

Again, wow.

I don't understand. How did the doctor write an opioid if she was not his patient?
Prescribing a z-pack to family/friends is one thing... Giving out narcs is another...
But maybe I have misunderstood what's going on here. Can you clarify?

 

[RustedFox]

I don't understand. How did the doctor write an opioid if she was not his patient?
Prescribing a z-pack to family/friends is one thing... Giving out narcs is another...
But maybe I have misunderstood what's going on here. Can you clarify?

BoardingDoc made it crystal clear.

 

[WilcoWorld]

I don't understand. How did the doctor write an opioid if she was not his patient?
Prescribing a z-pack to family/friends is one thing... Giving out narcs is another...
But maybe I have misunderstood what's going on here. Can you clarify?

The patient isn't the plaintiff in this case - the family members of those who were killed by the patient are the plaintiffs.

 

[Angry Birds]

The patient isn't the plaintiff in this case - the family members of those who were killed by the patient are the plaintiffs.

Ah, so sorry, I did a bad job of reading.
I thought it was the victim's family... not the people in the other car. Ok, thanks!

 

[emergentmd]

Being able to sue and actually winning a malpractice suit is a different story. If there is ever a case law that passes the Supreme court muster, and someone wins a malpractice suit that was not a patient, then medicine will collapse.

How in the world would anyone provide malpractice coverage when they have to literally insure the doctore against everyone?

 

[Kryptocoin]

Welcome to medicine 2022, where not only can you sue for whatever; you can also be criminally liable. What's to stop some overzealous DA from charging the doc with reckless endangerment?

 

[southerndoc]

Welcome to medicine 2022, where not only can you sue for whatever; you can also be criminally liable. What's to stop some overzealous DA from charging the doc with reckless endangerment?

Give it time and I'm sure it will happen.

The craziest story was what my attorney told me when I was going through litigation recently. He said a drug dealer was shot in a parking lot of a drug company (CVS maybe?) by his "client." The drug dealer said he was going to go into the drug store to buy medication (probably Sudafed to make more meth). Because he said he was going to shop there, he was a potential client of the drug store. He successfully sued the drug store for failure to provide a safe shopping environment and got a few million despite the shooting happening over his own criminal activity.

 

[emergentmd]

He got a few mil b/c CVS didn't want to spend millions defending the case and being plastered all over the news.

 

[bravotwozero]

Only in America can this happen.

 

[RustedFox]

We need a "common sense" standard in this nation.

 

[thegenius]

You would think CVS would argue this in court…but when you have 8B PROFIT last year (I looked it up), it’s just so easy to give this scumbag 2M to drop the case.

That’s the problem. That these companies make so much money that they don’t even care.

 

[Birdstrike]

CVS Board meeting: “Whadya say we just write a little check for $2 million, close a few stores in high crime zip codes and call it a day? All in favor say, ‘Aye….’”


“Aye”

“Aye”

“Aye aye aye ayeaye…”

 

[bronx43]

Being able to sue and actually winning a malpractice suit is a different story. If there is ever a case law that passes the Supreme court muster, and someone wins a malpractice suit that was not a patient, then medicine will collapse.

How in the world would anyone provide malpractice coverage when they have to literally insure the doctore against everyone?

Don’t most lawsuits get settled? Just the fact that this lawsuit wasn’t tossed out is damning enough for the system.

Honestly the moment the money goes away in medicine, then it’s over. I don’t know a single doc under 40 who doesn’t want FIRE.

 

[DrOwnage]

When you write opioids isn't it part of the deal to tell them and also put on the bottle not to drive or operate machinery? Doesn't this absolve you of blame? Like me asking my patient if they're NPO, they say they are, then they aspirate half a cheeseburger. Not my fault bro.

 

[Frazier]

Maybe I missed it in the article... I wonder how they proved in court that physician didnt provide side effect counseling/precautions to this patient about opioids? ... just because it wasnt written in a note? (The old "not documented, never happened" approach?)

I guess I will be updating my templates.

That said, I am not familiar with this sort of a side effect from opioid therapy. Sure, neurotoxicity can be something to worry about -- but someone's foot falling asleep (or having acute focal weakness/CVA?) Perhaps a calf spasm pushing the pedal? Hard to tease out what her experience was. None of those scenarios are how that toxicity tends to manifest. I guess plaintiff counsel found an "expert" to say otherwise. Of course if you dig deep enough in uptodate's adverse effects, there is a small print listing of muscle rigidity with IV/epidural/intrathecal. But not something standard to discuss for plain old oral therapy.

Tempting to copy and paste the entire Uptodate Adverse Effects into patient summaries... waste some more paper and ink for a few thousand words that no one will ever read....but alas there will be some lawyer somewhere to say "Aha, this listing provided by the negligent evil doctor excluded the risk of making my patient lose her hair!" They will find some expert to agree "of yeah, opioids cause people to lose their hair all the time. See it every day in patients that get chemo!" Gullible jury of peers and BOOM case lost or settled with a scarlet letter for the doc.

Better to be broad in documentation, I suppose as saying essentially "discussed".

Interesting case.
Thanks.

 

[Proudfather94]

What is America's problem with personal accountability? Systems get blamed for individuals choices. What do they hope is going to be accomplished by this? Physicians won't want to write prescriptions for anything that can result in anyone being hurt. Good luck getting pain meds in that state if the doctor loses this case.

 

[Kryptocoin]

What is America's problem with personal accountability? Systems get blamed for individuals choices. What do they hope is going to be accomplished by this? Physicians won't want to write prescriptions for anything that can result in anyone being hurt. Good luck getting pain meds in that state if the doctor loses this case.

It's capitalism AKA insurance. In countries where doctors don't carry malpractice insurance, no one sues. Heck, in countries without mandatory car insurance, people quickly learn how to drive carefully.

 

[WilcoWorld]

Maybe I missed it in the article... I wonder how they proved in court that physician didnt provide side effect counseling/precautions to this patient about opioids? ... just because it wasnt written in a note? (The old "not documented, never happened" approach?)

I guess I will be updating my templates.

That said, I am not familiar with this sort of a side effect from opioid therapy. Sure, neurotoxicity can be something to worry about -- but someone's foot falling asleep (or having acute focal weakness/CVA?) Perhaps a calf spasm pushing the pedal? Hard to tease out what her experience was. None of those scenarios are how that toxicity tends to manifest. I guess plaintiff counsel found an "expert" to say otherwise. Of course if you dig deep enough in uptodate's adverse effects, there is a small print listing of muscle rigidity with IV/epidural/intrathecal. But not something standard to discuss for plain old oral therapy.

Tempting to copy and paste the entire Uptodate Adverse Effects into patient summaries... waste some more paper and ink for a few thousand words that no one will ever read....but alas there will be some lawyer somewhere to say "Aha, this listing provided by the negligent evil doctor excluded the risk of making my patient lose her hair!" They will find some expert to agree "of yeah, opioids cause people to lose their hair all the time. See it every day in patients that get chemo!" Gullible jury of peers and BOOM case lost or settled with a scarlet letter for the doc.

Better to be broad in documentation, I suppose as saying essentially "discussed".

Interesting case.
Thanks.

That's a good point - more documentation may not always be the answer.

 

[WilcoWorld]

It's capitalism AKA insurance. In countries where doctors don't carry malpractice insurance, no one sues. Heck, in countries without mandatory car insurance, people quickly learn how to drive carefully.

I was thinking along these lines as well - it may be that the whole point of making it a "malpractice" case is to get access the malpractice insurance company's deep pockets (at least, deeper than the driver's pockets).

 

[thegenius]

What is America's problem with personal accountability? Systems get blamed for individuals choices. What do they hope is going to be accomplished by this? Physicians won't want to write prescriptions for anything that can result in anyone being hurt. Good luck getting pain meds in that state if the doctor loses this case.

Yup...here comes norco 5-325 1 tab PO qday PRN severe pain dispense 3 no refills.

Probably should do this anyway.

 

[RustedFox]

Yup...here comes norco 5-325 1 tab PO qday PRN severe pain dispense 3 no refills.

Probably should do this anyway.

Florida already does this.

You can have three days of a scheduled med. Then, eff off.

 

[thegenius]

Florida already does this.

You can have three days of a scheduled med. Then, eff off.

norco 5-325 1 tab PO qday PRN severe pain dispense 3 no refills

1 pill a day

Florida is the greatest!

 

[emergentmd]

I was thinking along these lines as well - it may be that the whole point of making it a "malpractice" case is to get access the malpractice insurance company's deep pockets (at least, deeper than the driver's pockets).

When we were a SDG, we had 1M per occurrence policy. One of our consultants told us to bring it down to 300K b/c it is a smaller target on our back and almost never do plaintiff lawyers ever go for anything over the policy limits. In the 5 years after we implemented that, there was never a case sued for over 300K.

I had one suit in my whole life and the plaintiff happened to sue for 300K, settled for a fraction of that. If we had a 1M limit, I am sure the suit would have been for 1M.

 

[thegenius]

When we were a SDG, we had 1M per occurrence policy. One of our consultants told us to bring it down to 300K b/c it is a smaller target on our back and almost never do plaintiff lawyers ever go for anything over the policy limits. In the 5 years after we implemented that, there was never a case sued for over 300K.

I had one suit in my whole life and the plaintiff happened to sue for 300K, settled for a fraction of that. If we had a 1M limit, I am sure the suit would have been for 1M.

Boy with that logic, just get a 10K per occurrence policy.

 

[Proudfather94]

Yup...here comes norco 5-325 1 tab PO qday PRN severe pain dispense 3 no refills.

Probably should do this anyway.

Sleeping pills are another one that probably won't be percribed. "You knew there was a possibility that your pt could drive and fall asleep at the wheel so you're liable."

 

[emergentmd]

Boy with that logic, just get a 10K per occurrence policy.

We dropped to 300K b/c that was the minimum hospital requirements. I am sure we would have went lower if not required.

 

[Candidate2017]

This is utterly insane. The TL;DR is: Doc wrote an opioid Rx for some lady. She crashed her car and killed the occupants of the other car. Family member of the people killed sued the doc who wrote the opioid Rx.

Again, wow.

This is nothing new. Anyone can sue anyone and actually win based on the actions of a 3rd party, i.e., Sandy Hook victims were able to sue and win against the gunmaker.

The flip side is had this not been ruled a malpractice case, the doctor would have to pay for defense lawyers rather than the malpractice insurer. Of course, malpractice insurers will raise their rates, and the suing family may be capped under any state malpractice limits.

Insurance always wins, everytime.

 

[emergentmd]

I think then Sandy Hook Remington case settled and settled for many reasons

1. Get out of the year long poor publicity
2. Cut their loses b/c of the years of litigations and potential for many more years of litigations. The families could have dragged this out for decades
3. Remington was in financial difficulties and their insurers paid up so didn't directly their bottom line

The lawsuits against gunmakers are a huge reach. If the government says its legal to sell semi automatic guns, and someone bought it/obtained it legally or not, how is this the gunmakers fault?

That is like someone getting killed in a car accident and the family suing the car maker. I see no difference.

 

[Kryptocoin]

I think the Sandy Hook lawsuit was more of a political statement. Any massive shooting always leads to calls for gun control, especially those involving first-graders. Unfortunately, Congress and politicians are too inept to do anything besides "thoughts and prayers". So gun markers become the next easy targets.

Remington was smart to settle to stop the bad publicity. Although if they had continued the case, they would have likely prevailed in court.