Malpractice plaintiffs blacklisted by doctors

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In Texas, Hire a Lawyer, Forget About a Doctor? (NY Times, registration required: excerpts below)

HOUSTON, March 4 ?- As domestic security director for 16 north Texas counties, Greg Dawson of Fort Worth has many dealings with doctors and hospitals, preparing for a terrorism emergency he hopes will never come.

So, Mr. Dawson said, he was stunned this week to find that his name had been added to a little-known Internet database for doctors attacking "litigious behavior." His offense: filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a Fort Worth hospital and doctor over the death of his 39-year-old wife, whose brain tumor was missed, and winning an undisclosed settlement.

For months, an obscure Texas company run by doctors has been operating a Web site, DoctorsKnowUs.com, that compiles and posts the names of plaintiffs, their lawyers and expert witnesses in malpractice lawsuits in Texas and beyond, regardless of the merit of the claim.

"You may use the service to assess the risk of offering your services to clients or potential clients," the Web site says.

For fees listed as low as $4.95 a month for the first 250 searches and thereafter 2 cents a search, subscribers are invited to search the database "one person at a time or monitor any sized group of individuals for litigious conduct." They can also add names to the database "from official and unofficial public records." Whether that could include a doctor's own files is not clear....

The American Medical Association said that it had just learned of the group and that it saw no ethical issues at stake.

"There's no question that physicians are totally frustrated by the relentless assault on the medical profession by trial lawyers," said Dr. William G. Plested, chairman of the A.M.A.'s board of trustees and a cardiovascular surgeon in Santa Monica, Calif. Dr. Plested said the government already maintained a database of doctors who had been sued, for use by medical professionals.

"Is it fair to come to me if you've sued the last 10 physicians you've seen and never collected?" he asked. "Is it fair for me not to know that?"

So, is it fair for doctors to "blacklist" medical malpractice plaintiffs?

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Hmmm.. "Fair".. I really hate "fair". Is it fair? No. Is it "fair" for people to blacklist doctors that have malpractice suits against them? No.

I guess it all goes back to "life isn't fair". Blahh. Got beer?

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I think to be completely fair the site also should be required to post the names address and the specialty of the doctors who use the service.

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The phrase that springs to mind is "the first amendment" if it is O.K. to be able to talk about " wogs and coons" and be within your first amendment rights, why shouldn't doctors be able to talk about litigious type people?

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Quote:

Is it "fair" for people to blacklist doctors that have malpractice suits against them? No.

Well, fishin', I have to disagree with you on that. In Florida (which does a FEW things right) there is a website where you can check a physician's credentials. One of the questions on the site that the MD needs to answer is if there are any malpractice that have been adjudicated against them in the last ten years. (not pending cases..only ones that were decided against them). That is one of the things that I look for when I check out a doctor.

I do use one doc who had a small suit against him 8 years ago. I did not consider that a problem. There was one orthopedist in town to whom I took my mother, when she needed a hip replacement. I had bad vibes about him, and found another doc. Years later, when I got my computer, I checked up on him, and sure enough, he had a list of expensive lawsuits settled against him as long as your arm!

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Ya missed me point thar Phoenix! "Fair" is one of those things that's in the eye of the beholder. What's "fair" to one person isn't necessarily "fair" to another.

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Joe..

Very nice picture of Richard J. Daley!

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The issue is "fairness".

I would think 'it's "fair"but certainly not ethical for Docs to blacklist certain patients.

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It's also common sense on the part of the MDs. Who wants "trouble" visiting their office each adn every day?

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Can doctors resort
To self-help to screen out their
Litigious patients?

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fishin'- Gotcha! I am particularly concrete early in the morning! :wink:

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joefromchicago- I think that it is a good idea. The medical litigation has gotten completely out of hand, where it is turning the entire practice of medicine on its head, increasing malpractice insurance, and discouraging qualified individuals from going into medicine. I say hurray for the doctors.

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What do you think of people who enter medicine ( as MDs) strictly to make big cash?

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Quote:

What do you think of people who enter medicine ( as MDs) strictly to make big cash?

IMO, people who go into medicine should have a deep desire to help people. If money is what a person wants, he/she should go into a commercial business. People who are "bottom line" oriented do not make good physicians.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

Quote:
What do you think of people who enter medicine ( as MDs) strictly to make big cash?

IMO, people who go into medicine should have a deep desire to help people. If money is what a person wants, he/she should go into a commercial business. People who are "bottom line" oriented do not make good physicians.

Could this be a reason why the number of applicants to med school has been falling over the past several years? Smile

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Miller- Absolutely. I also think that this is why more and more female applicants are entering medical school. Managed care, and high malpractice fees have turned off many men away from medicine. I personally have had two (male) doctors tell me that they would discourage their boys from going to medical school. My own doctor left private practice to work at the V.A., where the government handles the malpractice.

Getting back to my point about women. I think that the reason that women are now going into medicine in much larger numbers is because there is less of a concern for the women about making huge bucks. I think that this willl ultimately help the medical field, because the type of women who will now go in for medicine, will BE the ones who want to heal, not just simply make money.

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Malpractice plaintiffs blacklisted by doctors

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