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Category Archives: Medical Malpractice

Kentucky’s Bill To Prevent “Frivolous” Nursing Home And Other Medical Abuse Claims, But Is That The Problem?

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Elder Abuse, Elder Law, Health Law, Health Reform, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Negligence, Nursing Home Abuse, Personal Injury, Skilled Nursing Facilities, Wrongful Death

≈ Comments Off on Kentucky’s Bill To Prevent “Frivolous” Nursing Home And Other Medical Abuse Claims, But Is That The Problem?

Tags

Elder Abuse, Frivolous Litigation, Health Care Provider, Kentucky, Medical Malpractice, Nursing Homes

Senate OKs Bill For Review Panels In Medical Lawsuits After Lively Debate Between Doctors, Lawyers, Others, by Melissa Patrick, Kentucky Health News

http://kyhealthnews.blogspot.com/2015/02/senate-committee-oks-bill-for-review.html

The Senate has approved a bill that advocates say will help weed out ‘frivolous’ medical malpractice lawsuits and speed up litigation for legitimate suits.

‘Right now, Kentucky has one of the nations most litigation-friendly environments, making our commonwealth a prime and profitable target for personal injury lawyers preying upon our health care providers,’ Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, a physician and sponsor of Senate Bill 6, told the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Opponents disputed that claim.

The Senate passed the bill Thursday 24-12. It is not expected to pass the House.

The bill would establish panels of three medical experts, two chosen by each side and the third chosen by the other two, to review suits against health-care providers to determine if the case has merit before the lawsuit can proceed. Panel findings would be admissible in court but not legally binding.

The Republican-controlled Senate passed a very similar bill last year but it got nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House, and its prospects are similar this time. However, Wednesday’s committee meeting provided a detailed and lively explication of the issue, lasing almost two hours.

Vanessa Cantley, a Louisville personal injury attorney, told the committee that most medical malpractice cases are legitimate. She cited a Harvard University study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that concluded ‘portraits of a malpractice system that is stricken with frivolous litigation are overblown’ and reported that 97 percent of claims for medical injury evaluated over a decade were deemed to be meritorious.

However, Michael Sutton of Louisville, a civil defense attorney, said defendants win 80 per cent of medical malpractice suits.

Cantley said there are 2,700 deaths in Kentucky each year due to purely preventable medical error, but, according to the state Department of Insurance, fewer than 500 lawsuits a year are filed by abuse and neglect victims. . . .

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Malpractice Immunity And Defensive Medicine.

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Evidence, Health Law, Medical Malpractice, Recent Links and Articles

≈ Comments Off on Malpractice Immunity And Defensive Medicine.

Tags

Defensive Medicine, Gross Negligence, Medical Malpractice, Medical News Today, Negligence, New England Journal of Medicine, Reasonable Care

Giving Physicians Immunity From Malpractice Claims Does Not Reduce ‘Defensive Medicine,’  Medical News Today (Rand Corporation)

Changing laws to make it more difficult to sue physicians for medical malpractice may not reduce the amount of ‘defensive medicine’ practiced by physicians, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Studying the behavior of emergency physicians in three states that raised the standard for malpractice in the emergency room to gross negligence, researchers found that strong new legal protections did not translate into less-expensive care.

The findings are published in the Oct. 16 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

‘Our findings suggest that malpractice reform may have less effect on costs than has been projected by conventional wisdom,’ said Dr. Daniel A. Waxman, the study’s lead author and a researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. ‘Physicians say they order unnecessary tests strictly out of fear of being sued, but our results suggest the story is more complicated.’

It is widely said that defensive medicine accounts for a substantial part of the hundreds of billions of dollars of unnecessary health care spending that is estimated to occur annually in the United States. Malpractice reform has been advocated by many experts as a key to reining in health care costs.

RAND researchers looked at three states — Georgia, Texas and South Carolina — that about a decade ago changed the legal malpractice standard for emergency care to gross negligence. Other states use the more common ordinary negligence standard, or a failure to exercise reasonable care.

The higher standard means that for physicians accused of malpractice in the three states examined, plaintiffs must prove that doctors consciously disregarded the need to use reasonable care, knowing full well that their actions were likely to cause serious injury. . . .

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Why Doctors Stay Silent When They See Mistakes Made By Other Doctors.

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Health Law, Health Reform, Medical Malpractice

≈ Comments Off on Why Doctors Stay Silent When They See Mistakes Made By Other Doctors.

Tags

Cleanup Surgery, Code of Silence, Doctor, Dr. Brant Mittler, Dr. David Mayer, Dr. Thomas Gallagher, Marshall Allen, Medical Error, Physician, ProPublica, ProPublica Patient Harm Questionnaire, Surgeon, Surgical Mistakes, The New England Journal of Medicine

Why Doctors Stay Mum About Mistakes Their Colleagues Make, by Marshall Allen, ProPublica

http://tinyurl.com/q2tknhf

A video discussion about why doctors stay silent about this problem is at the end of this post. -CCE

Patients don’t always know when their doctor has made a medical error. But other doctors do.

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Experienced Trial Attorney Shares The Risks and Rewards Of Personal Injury Lawsuits.

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Depositions, Discovery, Expert Witness, Experts, Health Law, Law Office Management, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury, Trial Tips and Techniques

≈ Comments Off on Experienced Trial Attorney Shares The Risks and Rewards Of Personal Injury Lawsuits.

Tags

Butter’s Blog, Expert Witness Fees, Fortune 500, Foshee & Yaffe, Gregory H. Haubrich, Jackpot Justice, Lawyer Fees, Litigation Costs, Medical Malpractice, Personal injury lawyer, Trial Tips & Techniques

Why Lawsuits Are So Expensive, Pt. I, by Gregory H. Haubrich, Foshee & Yaffe, Butter’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mgq7pnl

You’d be surprised at how careful good personal injury lawyers are about what cases they take. In general the public thinks that we can take any person with any complaint and get them some of what our governor calls “jackpot justice.” In truth, the economics of our practice and the ethics of our profession require that we only take cases of serious injury that are objectively provable. We as plaintiff’s lawyers most often fund the expenses of our clients’ cases; otherwise they would not have access to the courts because court cases are expensive. However, if we invest in unsuccessful cases, the time and money we put into those cases will be lost.

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Court Splits on Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress.

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Damages, Health Law, Litigation, Massachusetts Supreme Court, Medical Malpractice, Torts, Trial Tips and Techniques

≈ Comments Off on Court Splits on Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress.

Tags

Bystander Liability, Damages, Emotional Distress, Impact Rule, Medical Malpractice, Neglience, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Toney v. Chester County Hospital, Tort, Zone of Impact Liability

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Splits On Extension of Tort of Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress, by Daniel E. Cummins, TORT TALK Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mr4matq

The recent December 22, 2011 split decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the long-anticipated Opinion in the case of Toney v. Chester County Hospital, 2011 WL 6413948 (Pa. Dec. 22, 2011)(Baer, Todd, and McCaffery, JJ. join in support of affirmance)(Castille, Saylor, Eakin, JJ. join in support of reversal)(Orie Melvin, J. not participating) serves to fuel an argument in favor of the extension of the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED).

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Changes Expected This Year in Pennsylvania Civil Litigation.

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Construction, Expert Witness, Legal Technology, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Motor Vehicle, Product Liability, Technology, Trial Tips and Techniques

≈ Comments Off on Changes Expected This Year in Pennsylvania Civil Litigation.

Tags

Civil Litigation, Construction Litigation, Daniel E. Cummins, Expert Witness Discovery, Legal Technology, Massachusetts Supreme Court, Medical Malpractice, Motor Vehicle, Pennsylvania Law Weekly, Product Liability Litigation, TORT TALK

Changes Anticipated for Pa. Civil Litigation Jurisprudence in 2014, by Daniel E. Cummins, TORT TALK, republished from Pennsylvania Law Weekly

http://www.torttalk.com/2014/01/article-changes-anticipated-for-pa.html

Currently, there are a number of important civil litigation issues pending before the Pennsylvania appellate courts, the results of which could significantly impact the way litigators practice in the years ahead. Moreover, notable changes over the past year in Pennsylvania statutory law, as well as the Rules of Professional Responsibility, are expected to have a significant impact.

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Pennsylvania joins at least 34 other states by enacting law making apologies for medical errors inadmissible in court.

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by Celia C. Elwell, RP in Health Law, Medical Malpractice, Recent Links and Articles

≈ Comments Off on Pennsylvania joins at least 34 other states by enacting law making apologies for medical errors inadmissible in court.

Tags

Benevolent Gesture, Health Law, Massachusetts Supreme Court, Medical Malpractice

Sorry no longer seems to be the hardest word: Pennsylvania passes Benevolent Gesture Law, by Evidence ProfBlogger, EvidenceProf Blog
http://bit.ly/16xiPM0

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