Lawyers and Doctors

[Tom Houlihan]

(I knew that would get Jim's attention!)

I've long felt that one of the biggest problems with the US medical system is lawyers. Prices started skyrocketing, and care started going down the sh*tter when lawyers started getting their meathooks into doctors. Some of you will remember when "malpractice" suits started becoming big money makers for people. The bloodsuckers came onto the scene, and getting medical care became B-Horror film fodder.

I got another example of it today. Now, the doc I went to is affiliated with the hospital that I've been two twice in the past few years. What was the first thing I had to sign when I went in? A "Consent to Treatment" form. So, what assbag lawyer made a few grand off that scheme? When exactly did kowtowing to the lawyers override common sense??

Hey, Genius!! I walked in and said "Doc I have something wrong. Tell me what it is and fix it, please." If I'm asking, that generally implies consent, ya freakin' moron!!! If I wasn't going to consent to treatment, I would have stayed home!!! If I ask for treatment, doesn't that seem to indicate I'm consenting to it???

There is a place for lawyers in our society. There is a legitimate need for them. Operative word, "legitimate." All these ambulance chasers, and all these jackasses who have turned us into a society that blames everyone else for our f*ckups, though, can kiss my arse. To them, I'd willingly apply the words of the immortal Bard: KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!! Hey, they're ruining everyone's lives, so they must be prejudicial to good order and discipline, right!?

[Commander Waffle]

I'm glad I'm 16...I'll leave it at that...

[Roddoss72]

(I knew that would get Jim's attention!)

I've long felt that one of the biggest problems with the US medical system is lawyers. Prices started skyrocketing, and care started going down the sh*tter when lawyers started getting their meathooks into doctors. Some of you will remember when "malpractice" suits started becoming big money makers for people. The bloodsuckers came onto the scene, and getting medical care became B-Horror film fodder.

I got another example of it today. Now, the doc I went to is affiliated with the hospital that I've been two twice in the past few years. What was the first thing I had to sign when I went in? A "Consent to Treatment" form. So, what assbag lawyer made a few grand off that scheme? When exactly did kowtowing to the lawyers override common sense??

Hey, Genius!! I walked in and said "Doc I have something wrong. Tell me what it is and fix it, please." If I'm asking, that generally implies consent, ya freakin' moron!!! If I wasn't going to consent to treatment, I would have stayed home!!! If I ask for treatment, doesn't that seem to indicate I'm consenting to it???

There is a place for lawyers in our society. There is a legitimate need for them. Operative word, "legitimate." All these ambulance chasers, and all these jackasses who have turned us into a society that blames everyone else for our f*ckups, though, can kiss my arse. To them, I'd willingly apply the words of the immortal Bard: KILL ALL THE LAWYERS!! Hey, they're ruining everyone's lives, so they must be prejudicial to good order and discipline, right!?

Salutations Tom

Here in Aussie we have followed you in being law suit happy, an incident occured her several years back, there was multi-vehicle pile-up and spilt fuel all over the place, so an off duty doctor offered his services at the scene, i fire broke out and threateded to incinerate everyone, so the poor ol' doc had to make a life or death decision on a trapped woman, he amputated her leg to get her out as they had no time to get the jaws of life to cut her free, what happened later, a lawer convinced the woman to sue the doctor for malpractice, she won a half mil payout, the doc could not pay and ended up commiting suicide over it, for me he should have let the ungratefull bitch burn.

And now in Aussie it is clear that any trained health professional can be sued if things don't go right in accidents, they can be held to account financially as well as they can be struck off their respective registeries, and as a nurse i do not offer my help for fear of a lawsuit, i would let someone die in an accident rather than help, that is a very sad state of affairs.

Regards

Roddoss72

[Jim O]

You're right, it got my attention.

Part of the problem is the the lawyers also make the laws. There's this huge federal law called HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) which requires all kinds of things of providers but reimburses for none of them. We call those sort of government measures unfunded mandates. A common format for electronic medical records was one of the goals so you could get your care anywhere and they could read the info off a CD or DVD or secure file transmission. It's mutated into thousands of regulations that include the little line you have to stand behind at the pharmacy while the person in front of you is paying for their prescription and the signatures that you have been counseled by the pharmacist about the drug to the "consent to treat" forms and the list goes on. Once again, like the Americans with Disabilities Act and Braille writing on drive-through/drive-up ATM's, a well intentioned government act gone horribly wrong. Heck, we used to send postcards telling people that their PAP and mammograms were normal. That's a huge no-no now. We can't even leave a phone message about pretty much anything any longer.

Now malpractice is another kettle of fish entirely and I do think that personal injury lawyers are often the scum of the earth. The problem with the tort system in general is that it's like a lottery. And it's not often that the people who truly deserve to be compensated are the "winners". Face it, people make mistakes, and sometimes there truly is negligence/injury. Those people deserve to be compensated but these outrageous "pain and suffering" awards need to go. My brother was in the middle of a chain reaction car accident about 5 years ago. He was stopped at a light and a car hit him from behind, he hit the car in front of him, and that person hit the car in front of him. Under the law in New York you collect from the person who actually hit you who then can collect that amount from the person who hit him. Perfect system to make more money for the lawyers. Instead of everyone simply collecting from the idiot who bent over to pick up her cell phone and caused the whole thing, they get multiple suits for ever increasing amounts and take their cut on all of them. What's worse is that the wife of the person that my brother hit asked for $100,000 for "loss of consortium" for about six weeks. That guy must have been quite a lay to be worth that much for six weeks!

About 20 years ago I met a guy in London. We were at the fence at Buckingham Palace waiting for the changing of the guard. He recognized that I was American by my accent and we started talking. He was from New York and he mentioned that he was a lawyer. I told him I worked for insurance companies which is what I often told strangers. I asked what kind of law he did. He said they specialized in suing doctors for malpractice. So I asked how he got into that field and didn't he feel bad about suing other professionals and contributing to rising healthcare costs. Of course asking a lawyer about feeling guilty is like asking a shark if he feels bad about eating fish for lunch. Anyway, he said that his father had started this small law firm and back in the early 1970's New York State passed no-fault auto insurance which at the time made lawsuits less lucrative so he started suing doctors. They had been doing it ever since. That was the problem - lawyers with nothing to do. I say we send them to Australia!

[Jim O]

Salutations Tom

Here in Aussie we have followed you in being law suit happy, an incident occured her several years back, there was multi-vehicle pile-up and spilt fuel all over the place, so an off duty doctor offered his services at the scene, i fire broke out and threateded to incinerate everyone, so the poor ol' doc had to make a life or death decision on a trapped woman, he amputated her leg to get her out as they had no time to get the jaws of life to cut her free, what happened later, a lawer convinced the woman to sue the doctor for malpractice, she won a half mil payout, the doc could not pay and ended up commiting suicide over it, for me he should have let the ungratefull bitch burn.

And now in Aussie it is clear that any trained health professional can be sued if things don't go right in accidents, they can be held to account financially as well as they can be struck off their respective registeries, and as a nurse i do not offer my help for fear of a lawsuit, i would let someone die in an accident rather than help, that is a very sad state of affairs.

Regards

Roddoss72

In the US there is a "good samaritan law" in all 50 states (I believe) that protects health care professionals from damages in such situations. They had to pass them because doctors and nurses would drive right on by such a scene because of the concern of getting sued. Same thing would happen if someone went down in a public place from a heart attack or similar. Of course, now you can get sued if you *don't* help out, and criminally prosecuted in some states under the doctrine of "duty to rescue". Grrrr!!!!

[MAGNA]

Send them to Australia. Bugger that. We've got enough here now. It's fast becoming a case of sued if you do, sued if you don't.

Our system is getting so cocked up we have situations where any onus on common sense is put aside. One bloke dived into shallow water at the beach and sued the local council for not having warning signs. He got 4.5 million. Granted he was paralyzed in the accident but he was also paralytic. That's right - drunk at the time and yet no responsibility taken by him.

Again the lawyers argue the case. Australia does have a problem with the 'underdog' syndrome as I call it too. Lawyers in front of juries know this and play on it by implying that the plaintiff has been hard done by and no worries, the big bad filthy rich insurance company can afford the sum asked. I wonder sometimes if anyone on the jury stops to work out that they are the one's paying for the insurance in the first place and it's going to go up again.

AHHHH!! This is probably my most unfavourite subject as it is so friggin' obvious as to who is making the money out of it and that it isn't doing anyone else any good.

PS. People are whining at the moment because Doctors just increased their fees. With the indemnity / liability insurance they have to pay I say good for them. Maybe someone will wake up and ...... rant... snort... grouches off into the distance..

[Tom Houlihan]

That sounds like the guy that jumped off the high rise bridge down in North Carolina. He lived, then sued because there should have been warning signs against jumping!!!

I think we need to start enforcing Darwin's laws again!

[TSPhillips]

Jim and Magna,
I just finished my EMT certification, and during the class, one of the main concerns was what was the law concerning the good samaritan law? Were we required to stop at an accident scene and could we be prosecuted for not doing so? We were told that in the state of Texas, we were not required to stop at an accident, but that IF we did, then we couldn't leave until we were relieved by a similiar rank or higher. If we left before that happened, then you could be prosecuted for abandonment. I keep that in mind while I drive, because the extent of my gear I carry is several pair of gloves. I don't apologize for watching out for my own safety. Not sure about the rest of the country as far as laws are concerned. Regardless of the good samaritan law, I'm sure, as this post points out, that you could still be sued regardless and it would cost you to defend yourself. A large part of our training was legal ramifications.

[cyberia]

How bad can it get? When I was working regional news we rolled on a car verses tree in which a teenager was pined and pined good.

High rate of speed and DUI. No doubt, you could see the yaw marks and the beer cans.

The EMTs and First responders were doing all they could, in the pouring rain, to free this kid while his mother, who the kid had called on a cell phone and who in turn had called 911, stood a few yards away blocked by Fire Police under an umbrella screaming that "If you put another scratch on him I'll sue you, the fire department and the ambulance corps."

These guys were all volunteers and PSP had yet to arrive at the scene.

The chief on scene asked a favor and my camera guy went down and shot the whole extrication up close, as well as the triage and loading him into the ambulance. Just to help cover these guys asses.

Now I ask you, what's wrong with that picture.

[TSPhillips]

Unfortunately, I think the problem is the lack of people willing to take personal responsibility for their actions. It has become part of the culture of victimization. Our instructor told us that she made two copies of her run reports and kept them in a file at her home in case she got called into court, which she did for a run that had happened five years previous. When the lawyer began his questions, she pulled out the report which caused him to cut his questioning short as he knew he couldn't get her on trying to remember something from that long ago. We were told to document, document, document. If you don't write it down, it didn't happen. I'm sure those EMT's and first responders have heard that before. They do what they do because they feel called to do it, and take the threat of legal action as a hazard of the job. It was still nice of the cameraman to film the scene. I'm sure those guys were appreciative.