Dental Malpractice & Lawsuits

[Yah-E]

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Check it out, some interesting cases:

http://www.lawref.net/levy/index.html

We always hear the good stuff about Dentistry, I thought I play the devil's advocate and share the website to put things in perspective.

Gavin:

Perhaps you can place this useful website to one of the STICKY threads:

Dental glossary/terms

 

[drat]

Good link -- scary but important to remember.

 

[USAF_Dentman]

With an oversupply of lawyers (probably broke, BTW) they will go after anything just to make some use of their degree.

 

[north2southOMFS]

Just rediculous, too many lawyers with too little work, so what do they do......make **** up.

 

[drat]

Is it me, or do you guys think some of the settlements were low? Like, not being able to taste or feel my face anymore is worth more than $100,000 to me. 😉 Or maybe I'm just used to hearing about the gabillion dollar medical malpractice settlements in the news.

 

[north2southOMFS]

shut up you dirty rat.

 

[drat]

shut up you dirty rat.

Brilliant post. 👍
Why bother posting when you have nothing of value to say?

Anyway -- does anyone know what the annual cost for malpractice insurance is for a GP? The dentist I shadow said he pays ~$3K...I imagine this value differs if you're a specialist but does it change among states?

 

[joel4sale]

It start out few hundred dollars and then jump up to thousands when someone file something against you.

Notice lot of cases in the link are "Settlement" and not "Verdict".

It just take one unhappy patients and a greedy lawyer to file a complaint or motion of law suit. Before it actually went into law suit, your liablity insurance company will review the case and decide to take on the sue or settle it.

Chance are, lot of time your liablity insurance company would just "Settle" it before the law suit because it cost less sometimes (even if you win) and it protect the dentist too (so a record of file against to and not a full law sue case). That also encourage of lawyers to find ANY REASON to sue dentist! How is it possible to cause you headache when you had veneer done without trauma, infection? How is it possible to prove that you actually have a headache?


Even if it went to court, the decision is up to jury. Jury, the "General Public", the same people that told you "I hate Dentist" at the first visit. I had heard case where there are more than half dozen experts witness stating the plantiff (the poor, abused patient) is full of crap and the jury still think the defendant (the BIG RICH EVIL Dentist) should pay up. Remember, jury does not need to give reason for their decision.......SO THEY CAN MAKE THEIR DECISION WITH OUT REASON!!!!


75% of us dentist will face situation like this sooner or later.......I hope insurance company lawyer does a better job to counter sue to discourage the BS.. 😡

 

[north2southOMFS]

Brilliant post. 👍
Why bother posting when you have nothing of value to say?

Anyway -- does anyone know what the annual cost for malpractice insurance is for a GP? The dentist I shadow said he pays ~$3K...I imagine this value differs if you're a specialist but does it change among states?

Settle down, keep your panties on.

What you don't realize is that many of these letiginous patients should have gone into these procedures (like third molar removal) knowing that there could be a possible complication. Nothing will ever go right 100% of the time, and when a complication arises that the pt. knew could go wrong beforehand, why are they entitled to any money from the doctor? Why does the doctor owe them money now? I consider those $150,000 settlements kinda high in my opinion, and so will you when you finish and start getting paid for your work.

As for how much is normal malpractice for a given GP or specialist, well thank your lucky stars that general dentists have a very, very low yearly malpractice insurance premium, compared to our medicine collegues we are doing very well. I believe that all the specialties, except OMFS, are still relatively low or lower than their GP counterpart. Oh, and I believe it does vary considerable among states because some states have more restrictions or caps on malpractice lawsuits than others. And some states by nature are more letiginous than others.

OMFS insurance can be moderate - high depending on the cases you want privaleges for or are going to perform. But then again I am still a resident so all of my info has been from what I was told, so if you hear it straight from the horses mouth(an actuall oral surgeon), then believe them.



Oh, and now I need to put in my 2 cents about november here:

PLEASE PLEASE dont vote for John Kerry and his doctor suing counterpart John Edwards. They will only open the floodgates to frivalous medical malpractice lawsuits and reverse everything the Bush Administration has done to try and curb the settlement amounts and lower healthcare premiums.

OK, enough ranting.

 

[toofache32]

PLEASE PLEASE dont vote for John Kerry and his doctor suing counterpart John Edwards. They will only open the floodgates to frivalous medical malpractice lawsuits and reverse everything the Bush Administration has done to try and curb the settlement amounts and lower healthcare premiums.

I agree. Cheney sure mopped the floor with that crook tonight. 😀

 

[Zurik5]

I agree. Cheney sure mopped the floor with that crook tonight. 😀

It was a tie, common, they're both crooks....

 

[delchrys]

i am voting nader. they're all crooks. seriously, how can you support bush--he's had a republican house and congress for four freakin years and hasn't done a damned thing for doctors, why would these next four years be any different.

edwards is shady, and cheney is flat-out satan. he reminds me of darth vader, but scarier.

not getting into the med mal/tort reform debate again 😉 but i will say this--i think that there is a decent chance that the motion i wrote last night will end up kicking the f*cker suing the local hospital off the globe and killing her ridiculous money-grubbing lawsuit outright. and ANOTHER case looks like it's going belly up thanks to the plaintiff's lazy, stupid attorney. thank god law school is easy--lots of lazy idiots out there so it's much less dangerous than it could be.

god, i hate those who are in my profession...650 law students at my school, and you'd think i could find more than three that i like...

 

[Gutta Percha]

Malpractice in my state-AZ--like most is reasonable. $800 starting and maxes at year 5 at about 3k with 1/3million coverage.

In terms of med mal lawyers---they usually aren't highly qualified attorneys. The attorneys who went to law schools that were tier II, III usually are the med mal attorneys; however, there are exceptions. The reason is that med mal is not lucrative. Winning a 100k med mal case is peanuts (except for us)compared to representing Intel in litigation or a large M&A.


But do not vote for Bush b/c he is a *****. If you are under 35, not married or in school then you will be drafted in a year if this war isn't getting better and it doesn't look like it will. They say there isn't going to be a draft but don't believe them unless you believe saddam hussein flew into the WTC (like bush does). If you want more of the same with the war and higher insurance premiums (less patients who have insurance means less money in your pocket) then stay with Bush. If you think voting for a previous med mal attorney is bad b/c he "stole" money from doctors, then why would you vote for a crook like cheney who lines his pockets with halliburtons spoils coming from your taxes. Enough about politics.

 

[Midoc]

Gutta Percha - I'm not going to respond but it seems odd that you post a somewhat inflammatory political comment and then end with "Enough about politics."

 

[USAF_Dentman]

Malpractice in my state-AZ--like most is reasonable. $800 starting and maxes at year 5 at about 3k with 1/3million coverage.

In terms of med mal lawyers---they usually aren't highly qualified attorneys. The attorneys who went to law schools that were tier II, III usually are the med mal attorneys; however, there are exceptions. The reason is that med mal is not lucrative. Winning a 100k med mal case is peanuts (except for us)compared to representing Intel in litigation or a large M&A.


But do not vote for Bush b/c he is a *****. If you are under 35, not married or in school then you will be drafted in a year if this war isn't getting better and it doesn't look like it will. They say there isn't going to be a draft but don't believe them unless you believe saddam hussein flew into the WTC (like bush does). If you want more of the same with the war and higher insurance premiums (less patients who have insurance means less money in your pocket) then stay with Bush. If you think voting for a previous med mal attorney is bad b/c he "stole" money from doctors, then why would you vote for a crook like cheney who lines his pockets with halliburtons spoils coming from your taxes. Enough about politics.

There wont be a draft, its political scare tactics by the democrats. What the hell does it matter if Hussein had no link to 9/11? He should had been taken out when the Israeli Air Force bombeb the **** out of his nuclear facility where he WAS in the process of developing nuclear weapons in the late 1980's.

Higher insurance dont neccesarily mean less money in our pockets, as most patients DONT have dental insurance and pay outta pocket. The loss of money will be minimal at least. Plus you have to realize that the more people that have insurance, the more bull**** paperwork and headaches that dentists will have to deal with. So for me its better to leave insurance the way it is right now.

Yes, i wouldnt vote for a medical mal lawyer, because as was stated before, most are stupid and didnt give a **** about anyhtiong in there whole life, and who were probably lazy not to mention, yet made money by scams.

Also, back to the main topic, i would have my patients sign a DO NOT SUE order, and my ass is covered.

 

[Dr.SpongeBobDDS]

No offense, but anyone who couldn't see right through this draft scare has no business voting. The only source we have for this is John Kerry's "suggestion" that Bush is going to institute a draft after the election; he was very careful to phrase it in lawyerese so he couldn't be held accountable for such an obvious lie. All he needed was enough of a suggestion to get the rumor mills churning.

The ONLY people who have supported a draft in the last 10 yrs are DEMOCRATS! The current draft legislation was written and sponsored entirely by... democrats, and the only people who voted for it were... DEMOCRATS!

 

[Dr.SpongeBobDDS]

No offense, but anyone who couldn't see right through this draft scare has no business voting.

Sorry about that. Reading this again I realize that was a pretty rude thing to say. I really didn't mean to imply that you were stupid, Gutta Percha. I was just upset that such an outright lie was actually working for the Kerry campaign. I shouldn't have directed that towards you. My apologies.

 

[mike3kgt]

Sorry about that. Reading this again I realize that was a pretty rude thing to say. I really didn't mean to imply that you were stupid, Gutta Percha. I was just upset that such an outright lie was actually working for the Kerry campaign. I shouldn't have directed that towards you. My apologies.

A problem I see with contemporary politics - we are focusing on pointless legislation that has absolutely no chance of passing.

From the right - Gay Marriage Ban (to envigorate the religious right)

From the left - Re-institution of the Draft (to anger and motivate the anti-war proponents)

So what's the problem you ask? We, as future dentists and healthcare professionals, sit here wondering when medical malpractice tort reform will be an issue once again. The ingetrity profession is slowly being chipped away by government regulations and unscrupulous med (dent) mal attorneys.

Am I the only one that sat during the debate jumping out my chair when Cheny responded during the presidental debate "I am not familiar with my opponent's cases"?

-Mike

 

[drPheta]

Anyone see anything wrong with this VERDICT???

Case: Defendant negligently traumatized plaintiff's lingual nerve while extracting an impacted lower molar. Plaintiff contended that defendant failed to offer more conservative alternatives when obtaining consent. Defendant denied negligence and contended that lingual nerve injury is a known risk of the procedure and did not indicate negligence. Jury Verdict: $150,000.00 for future pain and suffering and $50,000.00 for past pain and suffering.

And this??? I'm guessing the dentist didn't have very good case notes for his practice, or the Jury really does suck the lifeblood out of ethics.

Case: Removal and re-cementing of bridge blamed for brain abscess. Plaintiff alleged that his brain abscess was related to the manipulation of his bridge by the defendant dentists. According to plaintiff's experts, defendants' manipulation of the bridge created a portal into the blood stream for the mouth organisms allowing them to form a bacteremia and travel to the brain. Defendants' denied the existence of infection when plaintiff presented with the bridge and contended that they prescribed antibiotics prophylactically. Verdict: $1.35 Million

I smell patient non-compliance here. It's hard to believe a dentist would allow a patient to go for so long with perio problems (provided the patient regularly visited). Then again, this doc could have been blind to perio or just plain unethical.

Case: From 1984 to 1991, plaintiff treated with defendant for dental care. Due to defendant's neglect of plaintiff's periodontal needs, plaintiff had to have 15 teeth extracted. Verdict: $1.5 million.

 

[toofache32]

.They say there isn't going to be a draft but don't believe them unless you believe saddam hussein flew into the WTC (like bush does).

I don't think Bush actually claimed Saddam flew into the WTC. The idea is that another group of terrorists did 9/11, so now we should act pre-emptively to prevent what the best evidence showed would be the next 9/11.

If we had invaded Afghanistan on September 10, the same people who complain about Iraq now would be fussing because "the Taliban were innocent," just like they are doing now with Saddam. It all depends on whether you prefer to nip a problem in the bud or wait until it stabs you in the heart. I'm just glad we finally got a President who will take care of business when he needs to, unlike the liberal wussies.