This bill is bad for people receiving care and good for the doctor. This tort gives doctors room to make medical mistakes at the cost of you or your loved ones life. We need to make sure doctors understand the consequences of each procedure and this tort give them the ability to have no accountability. No lawyer will take your case if you accuse the doctor of medical malpractice. You can1t get any justice and that’s wrong. Go look at how many people have been negatively impacted by this bill. The people need to stand together and get rid of this bill.
This bill is actually a good thing. The “pain and suffering” cap has no effect, if you read the article, on damages that cover lost wages, medical expenses, and so on.
Meanwhile, trial lawyers who get paid by the hour now have fewer suits. They stand to lose the most from tort reform. Doctors facing absurd, arbitrary charges just leave. Not good for Texas, is it? Fewer physicians = higher costs. Arbitrary pain and suffering lottery lawsuits = gargantuan malpractice insurance = even higher costs. Not only that, doctors overprescribe and over-test so that they minimize their chances of being sued like this. Now costs are up even more due to waste.
Also consider this – if the insurance company denies payment for something a doctor orders, the doctor is liable if something goes wrong.
The threat of absurd lawsuits imposes huge costs on doctors and patients. Tort reform is most assuredly a good thing.
There really never was a bona fide “malpractice” emergency in this country. Malpractice awards have never even come close to amounting to even just one per cent (1%) of annual health care expenditures and tort reform has not reduced the cost of malpractice insurance to MD’s or health care costs to insurers and/or patients. The amount of money this reform was supposed to save in “unnecessary” testing was and is chump change in the grand scheme of things, and the entire fiasco IMHO has been nothing more than a ruse concocted by insurance companies and those promoting the industrialization of (vastly over-priced) health care.
The only place I ever saw absurd med-mal law suits generated was from the prison system, where one inmate tried to bring suit for not being prescribed opiates upon demand. That’s ridiculous, and it went nowhere. But aside from that I’ve not heard or seen of “trivial” med mal suits. Moreover, if a civil rights attorney ever gets wind of the failure to treat the Hepatitis C cases that exist in the prison system, the potential liability for this state would be crushing, and it would be the second time access to care would become an issue.
This type of thinking turns the most vulnerable – the elderly, babies, stay at home parents…anyone not earning a salary – among us in to “free kills”. If we’re going to cap egregious standard of care violations that cost a family their grandfather/mother/child, they should certainly be capped higher than $250k (doctor & hospital) and indexed to health care cost. One man’s opinion…
I believe this level of tort reform is utterly ridiculous. There should be a balance between absurd arbitrary awards for frivolous suits and awards in alignment with obvious, without a doubt medical mal practice. Medical costs has indeed increased.
On the web, there are many examples of medical malpractice cases. I just received my hospital bill in the amount of $52,000 for a 5 day hospital stay because a Specialist Phycian made a mistake. My insurance company should not be required to pay this. So looks like insurance companies are getting screwed on both ends
2018 and now there is a doctor in prison for life for killing and maiming many people but no one can file a lawsuit because no lawyer will take it for the money. All these people die or are hurt and can’t get anything because Republicans didn’t want to hurt their rich friends. No one will operate on me in the stupid state of Texas
What’s needed is a revolution to turn the King of England and his sovereign immunity on his arse one more time. It even looks like the newest Tea Party has started once again in Boston: C:\Users\tony\Documents\When Patients Kill Doctors The Horrifying Murder Of Michael Davidson.htm
I happen to be a physician retired due to illness. I never thought I would say this, but I agree with you whole-heartedly. My own experience with several practitioners in this state has (being polite) less than optimal.. I have also had the unfortunate first hand experience of weeing just how careless (in the truest sense of the word: care-less) even MD’s at so-called “Academic” institutions can be in inflicting what can only be described as willful neglect on patients. The pediatric and geriatric demographics are particularly at risk here, as the newer (2011) even more restrictive version of med-mal law states that if you are not regularly employed (no matter your age) you are entitled to no assessment of future economic damages. This is particularly egregious when viewed with pediatric patients in mind.
Current law limits Malpractice cases against physician who works for the state (whether UT, Texas Tech, Prisons, Health Department, etc.) by stating that in order to be considered for litigation/settlement, the alleged malpractice must involve either the misuse of the patient’s personal property OR the use of an automobile. I have trouble conceiving of any set of circumstances to which either one of those conditions might apply. How the Texas Supreme Court ramrodded that through th objections of the legal lobby in this state I have no idea. I do know that I have seen it directly result in patient harm with the victims rendered legally paralyzed by what I suspect is the state protecting a very large and Always growing pot of gold. (Let’s face it: the price of oil & gas goes up AND down while the cost of medical are only goes UP. I have spent somewhere between 1000-1500 hours over the past two years working gratis as an advocate for a patient (and family) so-afflicted, where the malpractice was so obvious even I have nightmares about it, and which involved such a high degree of sheer ignorance of current treatment standards as to trivialize that standard. (The standards mandating diagnosing correctly and treating according to standard have been abandoned by current law.) All this from an “Academic” institution (so-called “teaching” hospital). IT is in a word: frightening. Current law obviates the final words of the Hippocratic oath (“…Above all, do no harm.”) simply by decreeing that no MD in the employ of the state can legally do anything that can be considered “harmful”. Perhaps I am naïve, but I can only foresee that one day either this will result in a huge class action suit against the state (much like the one that changed prison health care in Texas) or patients doing what they once used to: taking the situation into there own hands (a practice which is still relatively common in china).
The fact that Texas refuses to allow calculation of lost potential economic damages simply because one is unemployed at the time of the malpractice is ludicrous. This in effect takes well-over 95% of the pediatric population and states that since we can’t know how much each individual would earn going forward there is no way to calculate that figure and therefore no need for recompense. Similarly for the elderly. The state of Texas appears to have figured out that the price of oil 7 gas go up AND down, while the cost of medical care only goes UP; they are protecting their new found pot of gold. There needs to be a way to publicly recognize those physicians and hospitals which abrogate standard of care in any particular clinical situation, though I am sure the state would endeavor to shut it down if it ever was established. Perhaps establishing it in another state would allow more freedom of speech.
Lastly, I don’t see how anyone can be the victim of med-mal and NOT have experienced pain and suffering; it seems a necessary consequence of the error(s). It also seems ridiculous to assume that because one crosses the Red River heading south that malpractice simply vanishes from the clinical scene, as if the geography itself was imbued with magical preventive medical powers. In highly technical medical language, I’d call that BullS***!
My father in law was moved from an acute care hospital to a nursing home on July 29th. He was taken from the nursing home to the hospital on July 31. The hospital’s ER doctor said he should never have been brought to the hospital. My father in law was found non-responsive (not breathing and no pulse) 34 hours later. He was not able to be resuscitated. I know for a fact that he was not given water from Friday until his passing. Would you be willing to speak with me?
As a retired physician, I can say that this bill on the whole, has not reduced the cost of malpractice insurance to physicians or the cost of medical care to patients at all. An excess of trivial lawsuits were generated in the state’s prison system, where it was considered largely a game to attempt to bring suit against a provider for almost any conceivable receivable reason (especially failure to prescribe narcotics for alleged complaints of pain). At one point the situation was almost of epidemic proportions. In the “free world” however (as the civilian population is sometimes referred to from those inside the TDCJ system) tort reform is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: because for children and retirees there is the assumption of no economic loss (Texas does not allow any monetary figure to be assigned to the “Average” future working life of a child) and the $250K cap on pain and suffering is so low that it barely covers what a med-mal attorney would have to invest out of pocket to bring an action, many cases which actually involve failure to properly diagnose and/or treat never see the “light of day” as it were. Thus, actual incidences of malpractice are probably being under-reported. This tort reform was tied by the Texas Supreme Court to an (I think ridiculous) legal concept that the King of England (and his employees) “can do no wrong”. This legal reach back cloaks Texas and the providers who work for it under this arcane doctrine (how can a royal family which practiced slavery on four continents be regarded as incapable of wrong-doing?) and has resulted in the creation of two-tiered system of risk for practitioners: if you are affiliated with a state agency (UT, Texas Tech, etc.) than as a physician it is nearly impossible to bring suit against you for any reason unless misuse of personal property (or a motor vehicle) is involved. It matters not if a patient’s condition is not diagnosed at all, improperly diagnosed, untreated or improperly treated, as failure to diagnose and/or treat does not apply to you as standards of professional practice if you work for the state (i.e. the “King of England” under this incomprehensible legal concept.) If you work outside the state health system than more usual standards of care do apply to your work, and you risk being sued for failures mentioned above. As Texas has grown huge university-based hospital districts in Houston and Dallas, with smaller ones in San Antonio and Texas Tech affiliated locations (and a new one about to created in Austin) AND as some private hospitals have sought to affiliate with state agencies to gain sovereign immunity from malpractice. As more and more hospitals and MD’s become virtually impossible to sue the number of malpractice suits will drop. https://www.hop-law.com/beware-of-government-hospitals-in-texas-2/. However, this does not mean that there has been an actual decrease in the incidence of malpractice, just the reporting of it. IF people are deprived of recourse for some thing as serious as genuine malpractice, sooner or later there will be reaction to that condition, and it could prove tragic. When you consider that medical expenses are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the country, consider what bankruptcy after medical malpractice might drive someone to do.
Tony Curtis, please consider joining ProPublica Patient Safety on Facebook. You remind me of Dr. Aaning and Dr. Makary. What helpful comments for families in tort reform states.
As a victim of malpractice prevented by “tort reform” from takng any action against physicians who have both actively and through failure to diagnose, I have been appalled by the negligence and lack of concern exhibited by members of the healthcare community. Physicians continue to order numerous tests rather than actually perform an in-depth examination and almost exclusively rely on invalid “history” in their decision making processes.
As an example, I visited an orthopedist after calling a treating physicians office asking who I should see for a particular issue. The physician assistan/nurse who queried the reason for my seeing the orthopedist translated my this information into “He has seen Dr. X who sent hime here.”, completely incorrect information. This communication problem became part of my “history” on which future docyors would base decisions.
Think about this, if such a small mistake can strongly affect your treatment outcome, how heavily would a series of these mistakes impact your overall healthcare?
To boot, there is no recourse for a person to clean up records containing errors by physicians. In my own case, a physician labeled diagnosis of Chronic Pain Syndrome, whicch is a signal to other doctors that I’m not to be trusted, was applied after two plus years of reporting progressive pelvic pain to numureous doctors within a given practice. Subsequently I self-Diagnosed three conditions, each disabling on their own, and received proper treatment from competent physicians outside of the state of Texas following a three year period of being told to go home and get used to it.
Remember, it only requires. “C” to become a doctor, hence having a lot of these low-performing physicians making errors with impunity can in no way be construed as “good for Texans”, but is a sad win for failing physicians and insurance companies.
Everything Carl says about physicians not performing an adequate exam is correct. Perhaps if physicians were not spending their time seeing so many people who are disability-seeking for syndromes and conditions that in most countries people obtain no social or financial benefit for being so-labeled, perhaps the medical community would be expected to spend more time with patients.
I think care should be taken when applying a label such as “disability-seeking” to folks reporting problems to their doctors. Lumping those with genuine medical maladies in with the relative few who do indeed attempt to game the system does a disservice to all. The fact is that in most states, particularly in Texas and across the south, obtaining dissability status is a difficult, arduous process. As with most insurers, the initial response is to automatically deny in effort to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
You are correct Carl. My husband is a doctor who was just recently injured very badly at Baylor, Scott & White.
There is zero accountability, remorse, apology coming from this hospital.
As a RN I have seen first hand horrible doctors which the general public will never know about and some who are in drug & alcohol rehab again practicing while they recover from treatment. My husband has personally seen horrible things happen in hospitals where people have died due to poor poor care, yet these doctors are still practicing on patients (literally), and simply move onto another hospital. Hospitals are BUSINESSES and nothing more. Their main interest is money. Now if we could have a reform for the money a hospital could charge per bad incident I assure you that things would be done differently. But this world is completely upside down. HOSPITALS truly do not give a flying rip about you even as an employee. Your just a money generator and nothing else. If your a doctor from a 3rd world country, with a poor education, who cares so long as you are hireable any hospital will jump on you because their is a great need for doctors now. So basically you take your life into your own hands when you enter a hospital………and I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I have seen so much illegal stuff no one would ever believe it goes on in hospitals but it does all the time every day. Hire your own nurse if you go to the hospital and have them with you at your side night and day. Then you are assured to leave with little damage……honestly I have thought about doing this type of work because there is a clear need.
I should add, next time you see your physician, ask how many patients he needs to see hourly in order to keep the business positive. Generally speaking, I ‘ve been told the average is eight, which includes generating the history as well as ordering any tests, meds, proceduress, referrals, etc. Doesn’t leave much time to diagnose. A bottom-up approach to solving the issue could be to press insurors to pay for physician diagnosis, backed up by minimal appropriate tests as necessary, as opposed to requiring multiple tests in confirmation of obvious affliction. (Think Medicare)
It would be interesting to compile a directory of patients who allege that they have been the victim of malpractice since tort reform was initiated (and then given steroids by Texas Xupreme (sic)court in 2011) and who have not been able to seek proper redress for the damages inflicted. It’s the type of thing that could turn into a multi-billion $$$ class action suit in the future because of the egregious nature of the act and the numbers effected.
I am aware of at least two cases of malpractice so obvious they frightening, one committed by the head of an “academic” department. The family went on a nationwide search for someone competent enough to reverse the damage done, while the idiot (and I mean IDIOT) ditz who committed the malpractice dances freely among the flowers like the self-anointed genius she is. When I spoke to a paralegal in the city where the act was committed, she (a former nurse practitioner) told me who the involved MD was before I revealed her name. That was frightening: this woman has a reputation. The family has been lucky enough to find people competent and caring enough to correct the problems, but not without significant costs and two years lost. I am beginning to think that perhaps the “big money” families in Texas have begun to move their investments out of oil &^ gas and into health care. After all, we know the prices of Oil & Gas go up AND DOWN, while the price of health care only goes up. The medical districts in Houston and Dallas (with the growing one in San Antonio, and that newly announced in Austin) generate and will continue to generate as much or more revenue for the state than Oil and Gas. Neither medical insurance coverage nor medical malpractice coverage costs have decreased to the end purchasers since tort reform was initiated. I am lucky that I don’t have to seek health care in Texas, and I won’t. Be very careful – there is no redress for the “average Joe”, and it appears that without the threat of potential malpractice threats looming physicians here can, and a few will, do what they please. The best medical advice you can get these days is “take care of yourself”.
The insurance industry has fooled everyone – even the statistics quoted in this article, demonstrate that medical malpractice claims were not “out of control” like the insurance industry stated. If the average recovery is now only $199,000, and there was only a drop of 22% in the amount, then the average recovery PRIOR to tort reform was only $242,780 – MUCH less than the insurance industry led people to believe (remember all those wild claims about multi million dollar recoveries???? Most of those were reduced to nothing). And the premiums have not dropped sufficiently to account for that. So the insurance industry makes more money now! Isn’t that grand?
The whole medical industry is out of control (and no morons it is not from Obama Care) it is mainly the insurance and drug companies who can employ any politician they want, apparently with impunity. My question is HOW IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL. Isn’t there something called equal treatment under the law? What about other contractors of business? As if the doctor gods don’t have enough privileges already. What about prescription drugs, all the rationalizations for me having to get a note from mommy doctor to get medication are the same I could use as a professional carpenter about a power saw, IT IS TOO DANGEROUS YOU COULD HURT YOURSELF. So doctors what you are going to have to do is make an appointment for a month from now, wait a half hour to an hour, then I will see if you understand how to use a saw, then MAYBE, I will give you a permission note. It is good for a couple of months after that you will have to return the saw and come back to me for another note. That will be a hundred bucks please Mr. Doctor.
My husband was just dropped on his shoulder which crushed his nerves and his arm will never work again. He can’t return to work. We have lost all retirement benefits and insurance. We have a strong case as per attorneys, however, no one really wants our case because there is such a LOW case settlement. Only loophole is lost income. This is a horrible situation for us. I know that the worst hospitals are the ones who pushed for torte reform and gave major money to the governor at the time. So now Texas will end up with some of the worst doctors in the country because they know they can buy CHEAP insurance to protect them for little lawsuits, and not have to worry about the big bad people who they hurt and or injure. THIS IS A NIGHTMARE for my family.
This is sad. My mother trusted her neurologist to do the surgery and instead he allowed his student to practice on my mother, paralyzing her! My mother who once was independent and loved life, now lives with me in another state. My mother completely depends on me, she is paralyzed…I’m changing my mother’s diapers because a doctor took it upon himself to allow a student to chop my mother up! I have a TX attorney and I pray they can get justice for my mom.
This bill is bad for people receiving care and good for the doctor. This tort gives doctors room to make medical mistakes at the cost of you or your loved ones life. We need to make sure doctors understand the consequences of each procedure and this tort give them the ability to have no accountability. No lawyer will take your case if you accuse the doctor of medical malpractice. You can1t get any justice and that’s wrong. Go look at how many people have been negatively impacted by this bill. The people need to stand together and get rid of this bill.
This bill is actually a good thing. The “pain and suffering” cap has no effect, if you read the article, on damages that cover lost wages, medical expenses, and so on.
Meanwhile, trial lawyers who get paid by the hour now have fewer suits. They stand to lose the most from tort reform. Doctors facing absurd, arbitrary charges just leave. Not good for Texas, is it? Fewer physicians = higher costs. Arbitrary pain and suffering lottery lawsuits = gargantuan malpractice insurance = even higher costs. Not only that, doctors overprescribe and over-test so that they minimize their chances of being sued like this. Now costs are up even more due to waste.
Also consider this – if the insurance company denies payment for something a doctor orders, the doctor is liable if something goes wrong.
The threat of absurd lawsuits imposes huge costs on doctors and patients. Tort reform is most assuredly a good thing.
There really never was a bona fide “malpractice” emergency in this country. Malpractice awards have never even come close to amounting to even just one per cent (1%) of annual health care expenditures and tort reform has not reduced the cost of malpractice insurance to MD’s or health care costs to insurers and/or patients. The amount of money this reform was supposed to save in “unnecessary” testing was and is chump change in the grand scheme of things, and the entire fiasco IMHO has been nothing more than a ruse concocted by insurance companies and those promoting the industrialization of (vastly over-priced) health care.
The only place I ever saw absurd med-mal law suits generated was from the prison system, where one inmate tried to bring suit for not being prescribed opiates upon demand. That’s ridiculous, and it went nowhere. But aside from that I’ve not heard or seen of “trivial” med mal suits. Moreover, if a civil rights attorney ever gets wind of the failure to treat the Hepatitis C cases that exist in the prison system, the potential liability for this state would be crushing, and it would be the second time access to care would become an issue.
This type of thinking turns the most vulnerable – the elderly, babies, stay at home parents…anyone not earning a salary – among us in to “free kills”. If we’re going to cap egregious standard of care violations that cost a family their grandfather/mother/child, they should certainly be capped higher than $250k (doctor & hospital) and indexed to health care cost. One man’s opinion…
I believe this level of tort reform is utterly ridiculous. There should be a balance between absurd arbitrary awards for frivolous suits and awards in alignment with obvious, without a doubt medical mal practice. Medical costs has indeed increased.
On the web, there are many examples of medical malpractice cases. I just received my hospital bill in the amount of $52,000 for a 5 day hospital stay because a Specialist Phycian made a mistake. My insurance company should not be required to pay this. So looks like insurance companies are getting screwed on both ends
UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM REALLY Mark………..spoken like a man who has not needed a hospital or been involved in any negligent battle.
From what you are saying Texas will have the dumbest, lowest paid doctors in America.
And if that’s how you want it well good luck when you get sick.
2018 and now there is a doctor in prison for life for killing and maiming many people but no one can file a lawsuit because no lawyer will take it for the money. All these people die or are hurt and can’t get anything because Republicans didn’t want to hurt their rich friends. No one will operate on me in the stupid state of Texas
What’s needed is a revolution to turn the King of England and his sovereign immunity on his arse one more time. It even looks like the newest Tea Party has started once again in Boston: C:\Users\tony\Documents\When Patients Kill Doctors The Horrifying Murder Of Michael Davidson.htm
I happen to be a physician retired due to illness. I never thought I would say this, but I agree with you whole-heartedly. My own experience with several practitioners in this state has (being polite) less than optimal.. I have also had the unfortunate first hand experience of weeing just how careless (in the truest sense of the word: care-less) even MD’s at so-called “Academic” institutions can be in inflicting what can only be described as willful neglect on patients. The pediatric and geriatric demographics are particularly at risk here, as the newer (2011) even more restrictive version of med-mal law states that if you are not regularly employed (no matter your age) you are entitled to no assessment of future economic damages. This is particularly egregious when viewed with pediatric patients in mind.
Current law limits Malpractice cases against physician who works for the state (whether UT, Texas Tech, Prisons, Health Department, etc.) by stating that in order to be considered for litigation/settlement, the alleged malpractice must involve either the misuse of the patient’s personal property OR the use of an automobile. I have trouble conceiving of any set of circumstances to which either one of those conditions might apply. How the Texas Supreme Court ramrodded that through th objections of the legal lobby in this state I have no idea. I do know that I have seen it directly result in patient harm with the victims rendered legally paralyzed by what I suspect is the state protecting a very large and Always growing pot of gold. (Let’s face it: the price of oil & gas goes up AND down while the cost of medical are only goes UP. I have spent somewhere between 1000-1500 hours over the past two years working gratis as an advocate for a patient (and family) so-afflicted, where the malpractice was so obvious even I have nightmares about it, and which involved such a high degree of sheer ignorance of current treatment standards as to trivialize that standard. (The standards mandating diagnosing correctly and treating according to standard have been abandoned by current law.) All this from an “Academic” institution (so-called “teaching” hospital). IT is in a word: frightening. Current law obviates the final words of the Hippocratic oath (“…Above all, do no harm.”) simply by decreeing that no MD in the employ of the state can legally do anything that can be considered “harmful”. Perhaps I am naïve, but I can only foresee that one day either this will result in a huge class action suit against the state (much like the one that changed prison health care in Texas) or patients doing what they once used to: taking the situation into there own hands (a practice which is still relatively common in china).
Oh my God is all I have to say to this. It is utter Socialism at it’s best.
The fact that Texas refuses to allow calculation of lost potential economic damages simply because one is unemployed at the time of the malpractice is ludicrous. This in effect takes well-over 95% of the pediatric population and states that since we can’t know how much each individual would earn going forward there is no way to calculate that figure and therefore no need for recompense. Similarly for the elderly. The state of Texas appears to have figured out that the price of oil 7 gas go up AND down, while the cost of medical care only goes UP; they are protecting their new found pot of gold. There needs to be a way to publicly recognize those physicians and hospitals which abrogate standard of care in any particular clinical situation, though I am sure the state would endeavor to shut it down if it ever was established. Perhaps establishing it in another state would allow more freedom of speech.
Lastly, I don’t see how anyone can be the victim of med-mal and NOT have experienced pain and suffering; it seems a necessary consequence of the error(s). It also seems ridiculous to assume that because one crosses the Red River heading south that malpractice simply vanishes from the clinical scene, as if the geography itself was imbued with magical preventive medical powers. In highly technical medical language, I’d call that BullS***!
My father in law was moved from an acute care hospital to a nursing home on July 29th. He was taken from the nursing home to the hospital on July 31. The hospital’s ER doctor said he should never have been brought to the hospital. My father in law was found non-responsive (not breathing and no pulse) 34 hours later. He was not able to be resuscitated. I know for a fact that he was not given water from Friday until his passing. Would you be willing to speak with me?
As a retired physician, I can say that this bill on the whole, has not reduced the cost of malpractice insurance to physicians or the cost of medical care to patients at all. An excess of trivial lawsuits were generated in the state’s prison system, where it was considered largely a game to attempt to bring suit against a provider for almost any conceivable receivable reason (especially failure to prescribe narcotics for alleged complaints of pain). At one point the situation was almost of epidemic proportions. In the “free world” however (as the civilian population is sometimes referred to from those inside the TDCJ system) tort reform is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: because for children and retirees there is the assumption of no economic loss (Texas does not allow any monetary figure to be assigned to the “Average” future working life of a child) and the $250K cap on pain and suffering is so low that it barely covers what a med-mal attorney would have to invest out of pocket to bring an action, many cases which actually involve failure to properly diagnose and/or treat never see the “light of day” as it were. Thus, actual incidences of malpractice are probably being under-reported. This tort reform was tied by the Texas Supreme Court to an (I think ridiculous) legal concept that the King of England (and his employees) “can do no wrong”. This legal reach back cloaks Texas and the providers who work for it under this arcane doctrine (how can a royal family which practiced slavery on four continents be regarded as incapable of wrong-doing?) and has resulted in the creation of two-tiered system of risk for practitioners: if you are affiliated with a state agency (UT, Texas Tech, etc.) than as a physician it is nearly impossible to bring suit against you for any reason unless misuse of personal property (or a motor vehicle) is involved. It matters not if a patient’s condition is not diagnosed at all, improperly diagnosed, untreated or improperly treated, as failure to diagnose and/or treat does not apply to you as standards of professional practice if you work for the state (i.e. the “King of England” under this incomprehensible legal concept.) If you work outside the state health system than more usual standards of care do apply to your work, and you risk being sued for failures mentioned above. As Texas has grown huge university-based hospital districts in Houston and Dallas, with smaller ones in San Antonio and Texas Tech affiliated locations (and a new one about to created in Austin) AND as some private hospitals have sought to affiliate with state agencies to gain sovereign immunity from malpractice. As more and more hospitals and MD’s become virtually impossible to sue the number of malpractice suits will drop. https://www.hop-law.com/beware-of-government-hospitals-in-texas-2/. However, this does not mean that there has been an actual decrease in the incidence of malpractice, just the reporting of it. IF people are deprived of recourse for some thing as serious as genuine malpractice, sooner or later there will be reaction to that condition, and it could prove tragic. When you consider that medical expenses are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the country, consider what bankruptcy after medical malpractice might drive someone to do.
Tony Curtis, please consider joining ProPublica Patient Safety on Facebook. You remind me of Dr. Aaning and Dr. Makary. What helpful comments for families in tort reform states.
will do.
As a victim of malpractice prevented by “tort reform” from takng any action against physicians who have both actively and through failure to diagnose, I have been appalled by the negligence and lack of concern exhibited by members of the healthcare community. Physicians continue to order numerous tests rather than actually perform an in-depth examination and almost exclusively rely on invalid “history” in their decision making processes.
As an example, I visited an orthopedist after calling a treating physicians office asking who I should see for a particular issue. The physician assistan/nurse who queried the reason for my seeing the orthopedist translated my this information into “He has seen Dr. X who sent hime here.”, completely incorrect information. This communication problem became part of my “history” on which future docyors would base decisions.
Think about this, if such a small mistake can strongly affect your treatment outcome, how heavily would a series of these mistakes impact your overall healthcare?
To boot, there is no recourse for a person to clean up records containing errors by physicians. In my own case, a physician labeled diagnosis of Chronic Pain Syndrome, whicch is a signal to other doctors that I’m not to be trusted, was applied after two plus years of reporting progressive pelvic pain to numureous doctors within a given practice. Subsequently I self-Diagnosed three conditions, each disabling on their own, and received proper treatment from competent physicians outside of the state of Texas following a three year period of being told to go home and get used to it.
Remember, it only requires. “C” to become a doctor, hence having a lot of these low-performing physicians making errors with impunity can in no way be construed as “good for Texans”, but is a sad win for failing physicians and insurance companies.
Everything Carl says about physicians not performing an adequate exam is correct. Perhaps if physicians were not spending their time seeing so many people who are disability-seeking for syndromes and conditions that in most countries people obtain no social or financial benefit for being so-labeled, perhaps the medical community would be expected to spend more time with patients.
I think care should be taken when applying a label such as “disability-seeking” to folks reporting problems to their doctors. Lumping those with genuine medical maladies in with the relative few who do indeed attempt to game the system does a disservice to all. The fact is that in most states, particularly in Texas and across the south, obtaining dissability status is a difficult, arduous process. As with most insurers, the initial response is to automatically deny in effort to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Trying to get paid on disability is like extracting a farthing from Scrooge’s ass.
You are correct Carl. My husband is a doctor who was just recently injured very badly at Baylor, Scott & White.
There is zero accountability, remorse, apology coming from this hospital.
As a RN I have seen first hand horrible doctors which the general public will never know about and some who are in drug & alcohol rehab again practicing while they recover from treatment. My husband has personally seen horrible things happen in hospitals where people have died due to poor poor care, yet these doctors are still practicing on patients (literally), and simply move onto another hospital. Hospitals are BUSINESSES and nothing more. Their main interest is money. Now if we could have a reform for the money a hospital could charge per bad incident I assure you that things would be done differently. But this world is completely upside down. HOSPITALS truly do not give a flying rip about you even as an employee. Your just a money generator and nothing else. If your a doctor from a 3rd world country, with a poor education, who cares so long as you are hireable any hospital will jump on you because their is a great need for doctors now. So basically you take your life into your own hands when you enter a hospital………and I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I have seen so much illegal stuff no one would ever believe it goes on in hospitals but it does all the time every day. Hire your own nurse if you go to the hospital and have them with you at your side night and day. Then you are assured to leave with little damage……honestly I have thought about doing this type of work because there is a clear need.
I should add, next time you see your physician, ask how many patients he needs to see hourly in order to keep the business positive. Generally speaking, I ‘ve been told the average is eight, which includes generating the history as well as ordering any tests, meds, proceduress, referrals, etc. Doesn’t leave much time to diagnose. A bottom-up approach to solving the issue could be to press insurors to pay for physician diagnosis, backed up by minimal appropriate tests as necessary, as opposed to requiring multiple tests in confirmation of obvious affliction. (Think Medicare)
It would be interesting to compile a directory of patients who allege that they have been the victim of malpractice since tort reform was initiated (and then given steroids by Texas Xupreme (sic)court in 2011) and who have not been able to seek proper redress for the damages inflicted. It’s the type of thing that could turn into a multi-billion $$$ class action suit in the future because of the egregious nature of the act and the numbers effected.
I am aware of at least two cases of malpractice so obvious they frightening, one committed by the head of an “academic” department. The family went on a nationwide search for someone competent enough to reverse the damage done, while the idiot (and I mean IDIOT) ditz who committed the malpractice dances freely among the flowers like the self-anointed genius she is. When I spoke to a paralegal in the city where the act was committed, she (a former nurse practitioner) told me who the involved MD was before I revealed her name. That was frightening: this woman has a reputation. The family has been lucky enough to find people competent and caring enough to correct the problems, but not without significant costs and two years lost. I am beginning to think that perhaps the “big money” families in Texas have begun to move their investments out of oil &^ gas and into health care. After all, we know the prices of Oil & Gas go up AND DOWN, while the price of health care only goes up. The medical districts in Houston and Dallas (with the growing one in San Antonio, and that newly announced in Austin) generate and will continue to generate as much or more revenue for the state than Oil and Gas. Neither medical insurance coverage nor medical malpractice coverage costs have decreased to the end purchasers since tort reform was initiated. I am lucky that I don’t have to seek health care in Texas, and I won’t. Be very careful – there is no redress for the “average Joe”, and it appears that without the threat of potential malpractice threats looming physicians here can, and a few will, do what they please. The best medical advice you can get these days is “take care of yourself”.
The insurance industry has fooled everyone – even the statistics quoted in this article, demonstrate that medical malpractice claims were not “out of control” like the insurance industry stated. If the average recovery is now only $199,000, and there was only a drop of 22% in the amount, then the average recovery PRIOR to tort reform was only $242,780 – MUCH less than the insurance industry led people to believe (remember all those wild claims about multi million dollar recoveries???? Most of those were reduced to nothing). And the premiums have not dropped sufficiently to account for that. So the insurance industry makes more money now! Isn’t that grand?
And zero accountable for actions against arrogant doctors who play god! Thanks bought and paid for politicians be thankful you are not me SellOuts!
The whole medical industry is out of control (and no morons it is not from Obama Care) it is mainly the insurance and drug companies who can employ any politician they want, apparently with impunity. My question is HOW IS THIS CONSTITUTIONAL. Isn’t there something called equal treatment under the law? What about other contractors of business? As if the doctor gods don’t have enough privileges already. What about prescription drugs, all the rationalizations for me having to get a note from mommy doctor to get medication are the same I could use as a professional carpenter about a power saw, IT IS TOO DANGEROUS YOU COULD HURT YOURSELF. So doctors what you are going to have to do is make an appointment for a month from now, wait a half hour to an hour, then I will see if you understand how to use a saw, then MAYBE, I will give you a permission note. It is good for a couple of months after that you will have to return the saw and come back to me for another note. That will be a hundred bucks please Mr. Doctor.
My husband was just dropped on his shoulder which crushed his nerves and his arm will never work again. He can’t return to work. We have lost all retirement benefits and insurance. We have a strong case as per attorneys, however, no one really wants our case because there is such a LOW case settlement. Only loophole is lost income. This is a horrible situation for us. I know that the worst hospitals are the ones who pushed for torte reform and gave major money to the governor at the time. So now Texas will end up with some of the worst doctors in the country because they know they can buy CHEAP insurance to protect them for little lawsuits, and not have to worry about the big bad people who they hurt and or injure. THIS IS A NIGHTMARE for my family.
This is sad. My mother trusted her neurologist to do the surgery and instead he allowed his student to practice on my mother, paralyzing her! My mother who once was independent and loved life, now lives with me in another state. My mother completely depends on me, she is paralyzed…I’m changing my mother’s diapers because a doctor took it upon himself to allow a student to chop my mother up! I have a TX attorney and I pray they can get justice for my mom.