Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

A trend is emerging where patients in need of medical care are going abroad for surgeries. This trend is in response to rising health care costs in the U.S., a function of insurance companies increasing rates to maximize profits. However, there are numerous risks associated with major medical procedures abroad. Initially, the level of care may not be the same given different licensing requirements and regulations. Further, patients may be exposed to substandard protections against infection and the spread of disease. The American Medical Association has expressed concern over the standard of care in other countries and is not yet convinced that the purported benefits outweigh the costs. For patients that do seek care outside the U.S., it is important to see a U.S. physician for a follow-up upon reentry. These patients must also keep in mind that surgery and travel often do not mix.

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Following revelations that GlaxoSmithKline misrepresented the suicide risk associated with Paxil, an antidepressant, a recent study has concluded that the drug may also double the risk of congenital malformations in newborns. This study follows the release of information that taking Paxil may lead to an 8 times greater risk of suicide. The company had previously artificially reduced the risk of suicide by improperly counting patients who took placebos.

Similarly, women who took Paxil while pregnant and gave birth to babies with severe birth defects are outraged believing that GlaxoSmithKline may once again have misrepresented the dangers of their drug. Many of these women argue that if they had been properly informed about the risk of birth defects, they likely would not have taken Paxil during their first trimester.

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Following the lead of a Midwestern hospital, facilities throughout the country are taking a novel approach to medical malpractice – honesty. In an effort to limit liability, hospitals are calling patients’ families for meetings where they inform the family members that their loved one died, not because of natural causes, but physician malpractice or negligence. Surprisingly, the approach has worked to the extent that most family members appreciate an honest account of the cause of death.

However, there is an invidious motive behind this new policy. Hospitals are finding that by calling family members into their facility and telling them what happened, they are able to force ignorant or misinformed grieving family members into an emotional decision to settle before even consulting an attorney. This has the potential to create problems where settlements are far below fair compensation for the pain and suffering experienced by the family or even insufficient to cover basic medical expenses. Many of these cases involve gross negligence on the part of physicians where a patient is administered the wrong medication or a fundamental test is not performed that could have prevented death.

Ultimately, the policy of honesty has potential in wrongful death situations. However, patients and family members should be cautious when faced with a sudden decision to settle. At the very least, these individuals should avoid making an emotional decision on-the-spot. To this extent, consulting an attorney would help improve and refine this new approach to medical malpractice.

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A state legislative agreement was announced today that will publicize the names of doctors charged with misconduct and will give those doctors just one day to produce office records demanded by investigators. The measure is in response to a case where a physician improperly exercised controls over infections resulting in notifications to 10,000 patients that they may be infected. The physician had infected at least one patient with hepatitis C by reusing syringes. That same doctor had also been involved in 10 medical malpractice settlements in 10 years, which should have triggered a state investigation.

The new bill will require increased review of medical malpractice records to find patterns disturbing patterns. The bill will also increase transparency, a critical step to improved patient confidence in physicians and the medical profession. The increased access to medical records will also assist patients seeking to hold physicians accountable for their negligence and malpractice.

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Two state medical insurers are implementing plans to create physician ranking systems that would reduce patient co-payments for visits to higher rated doctors, despite opposition from a state medical group. The medical group filed a lawsuit stating that the tiered system is unfair to physicians who arbitrarily receive low scores while providing a high level of care. The group also argues that higher costs for visiting lower rated physicians are intended to defraud patients. Worse yet, no system exists for evaluating the effectiveness of physician ranking systems. The measures appear to be largely for the benefit of insurers, not patients, and will likely have no impact on medical malpractice or the quality of care provided.

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In some states, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits is on the decline by about 5% due to new policies regarding filing medical malpractice lawsuits. Though not required in Illinois, some states mandate independent medical review of a malpractice claim before the plaintiff can file. This decrease in medical malpractice lawsuits shows that “tort reform” is unnecessary. Tort reform can be very dangerous because it limits citizens’ access to justice and prevents an injured patient from recovering fully against their doctor for the doctor’s medical malpractice.

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CNN recently highlighted the danger that addicted doctors are still treating patients. One patient says she had to forgo cancer treatment because of a botched surgery by a doctor who was in treatment for alcoholism and had been convicted for driving under the influence of alcohol. She had to forgo cancer treatment while battling complications from the medical malpractice. Now she is dying of cancer. She sued the doctor in a medical malpractice lawsuit. While he did not admit fault, he settled with her for $250,000.

A study by the Federation of State Physician Health Programs found about one percent of all physicians practicing in the U.S. are in confidential treatment. That’s about 8,000 doctors whose patients may have no idea that they are addicts. This brings us back to the importance of researching your doctor!

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The Supreme Court will hear a case next term that could decide whether drug companies may escape liability for harm caused by their products and hide behind FDA approval. The issue in the case involves Johnson & Johnson’s prescription birth control patch, Ortho Evra, which delivered much more estrogen than the company originally disclosed. The Ortho Evra patch was a popular form of birth control as an alternative to the birth control pill. For women, medication dosing errors of estrogen may cause an increased risk of blood clots and strokes and has been linked to one death.

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A new study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that about 1 in 15 children are harmed each year by medication dosing errors at hospitals. The study revealed that children are harmed by dosing errors and incorrect medication substantially more often than previously thought. The study also revealed that some of these dosing errors and patient injuries could be prevented easily.

Medication dosing errors in children are the central issue in popular actor Dennis Quaid’s lawsuit in Chicago against Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter Healthcare. Quaid is suing Baxter, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, after Quaid’s baby twins received a Heparin overdose. The medical malpractice lawsuit is pending before Judge Quinn in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The full text of the Pediatrics study is available here.

Policymakers are considering instituting a state-sponsored indemnity fund that would pay the future medical bills of injured patients, effectively shielding all physicians, hospitals, and medical staff from any liability for medical malpractice and negligence. Many groups, including the Center for Justice & Democracy, the Center for Medical Consumers, and various public interest research groups have criticized the proposal for crippling the rights of patients. Not only would the proposal’s benefits apply to insurance companies, physicians, and hospitals, but it would likely pass the cost of the indemnity fund to the average patient by increasing medical expenses.

The proposal has also been criticized by many that would directly benefit, including insurance companies, on the grounds that the harms would be too widespread. Even if successfully implemented, the fund would likely fail to compensate victims of medical malpractice and negligence even for their medical bills. Ultimately, the proposal allows the real wrongdoers to escape any liability.

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The family of a woman must reimburse Wal-Mart for nearly a half-million dollars in medical expenses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review her case. The court recently let a ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis requiring Debbie Shank to pay nearly $470,000 to Wal-Mart.

This appeal was the last legal recourse for the family of 52 year-old Shank who was critically injured in a car accident eight years ago. She suffered a brain injury, leaving her with no memory and very little ability to move or communicate. She has lived in a nursing home since being released from the hospital.

Shank’s medical bills were covered by a health insurance program at Wal-Mart where Shank worked nights stocking shelves. Her family later settled a personal injury lawsuit with the trucking company whose driver was involved in the accident. After fees and expenses, $417,477 was put in a trust for Shank’s care. That settlement money plus $51,739 will have to pay out of pocket to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s insurance required full repayment of medical expenses if she received money from a personal injury lawsuit. Wal-Mart sued the family of the brain injured victim and stated that it sued “out of fairness to everyone who contributes” to the plan.

This tragic story is a prime example as to why the insurance and health care industries in the United States are in serious need of reform. Wal-Mart is an extremely wealthy business making its employees contribute for their own health care and now apparently sues to get money back from the most vulnerable victims.

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A recent op-ed article scrutinized health care oversight. The article argued that there is no reason that any consumer seeking preventive care should risk death while seeking routine medical care at the hands of a profiteering physician. When culpability in a medical malpractice lawsuit becomes revealed, there is no reason that others with close ties to a bad doctor should remain in positions of oversight. The article concludes that a full-scale, top-to-bottom failure of government systems have allowed years of risky behavior to put others at risk of medical malpractice.

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Four years ago, an investigation concluded that it was easier for consumers to find out information about their building contractors than for patients to get information about their doctors. In response, the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners promised to enhance its website to inform the public about doctors. But recently, the board removed medical malpractice lawsuit settlement and judgment information from the doctors’ online records. One State Senator stated that the statute covering the website was not very specific, but added “if we have to spell it out, then we’ll spell it out.”

People should have a right to the medical malpractice history of their doctors to make better informed decisions. Any board hindrance on consumer research into their own health care is unacceptable.

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The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a class-action lawsuit against the governor of Nevada and other state officials last week, alleging they had failed to rectify “a pervasive pattern of gross medical malpractice at the state’s maximum security prison. According to the medical malpractice lawsuit: “These deprivations are so extreme that they subject all the men confined there to constant significant risk of serious injury, medical harm [and] premature death.”

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A state Supreme Court decided to expand the rights of wronged patients in medical malpractice and negligence cases. The decision reinterprets the law so that the statute of limitations on raising a malpractice claim now begins once a patient knows the extent and cause of his injury in contrast to prior decisions stating that the statute of limitations began once symptoms were initially diagnosed.

The decision arose after a district court dismissed two claims of medical malpractice based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. In the first case, parents of a 16-year-old sued a facility for negligently prescribing Antabuse to treat the teen’s alcohol addiction. However, the suit alleged that the Antabuse caused long-term vomiting, jaundice, and irreversible liver damage. The district court ruled that, because the teen experienced severe symptoms beginning in March 1999 and the suit was not filed until April 2001, the two-year statute of limitations had expired. However, the Supreme Court overturned this decision, reasoning that any diagnosis of liver damage did not occur until months after the she began experiencing symptoms.

In the second case, a woman sued several medical providers for misdiagnosing her breast cancer. The district court dismissed the case because she had been informed, five years prior to filing the action, that there was a lump in her breast. However, in overruling this decision, the Supreme Court noted that the woman had repeatedly been told that her lump was benign until a test revealed cancer one year prior to her suit.

In reaching these conclusions, the Supreme Court emphasized concerns over fairness to patients, doctors, and the medical malpractice industry. Ultimately, the Court found that the rights of medical practitioners were not significantly impaired where there was actual wrongdoing.

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A physician facing 122 charges of medical malpractice and negligence is finally facing the possibility of losing his license. After repeated acts of medical malpractice, including allegations in pending lawsuits by patients that the physician sent one patient into a coma and caused great pain to another, the physician may finally be unable to practice.

These allegations of negligence and medical malpractice are even more egregious considering he has surrendered his license, lost his license, or had his license revoked in at least six other states. Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether the physician will or will not be allowed to practice in the future.

Such cases illustrate the need for continued lawsuits for negligence and medical malpractice because of the medical community’s inability to police itself. Perhaps further litigation will cause physicians to realize that repeat acts of negligence and medical malpractice are unacceptable.

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Preventable deaths in hospitals are not limited to people without access to health care and victims of medical mistakes and medical malpractice. People with insurance can still be effected by their insurer and the doctors advising the company. A teenage girl with leukemia was recently denied a liver transplant by her insurance company, who claimed that the procedure was too experimental. The teen's doctor, however, stated that people in a similar situation have a 65% chance of survival after similar procedures. The insurance company, at the last minute, decided to grant the transplant but after the delay the girl's parents decided to remove life support and it was too late. The girl's family is planning to sue the insurer for what they believe to be their daughter's wrongful death.

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Around 47 million Americans don't have health care, but even those that do agree that problems in the United States healthcare system need reform. In a recent article, 10 health care experts offered their personal suggestions on how to improve the country's situation.

1. Mend the medical schools
2. Single-payer insurance (creating a national system)
3. Individual, not company, plans
4. Divert the dollar to the doc
5. Pay for the care of populations, not events (high quality preventive care)
6. Cut costs for med students
7. Eliminate insurance all together
8. More health centers (affordable, community health centers)
9. Stimulating positive-sum competition (giving more info to providers and consumers)
10. Keep it low-tech (low-tech approaches to preventive healthcare)

Click here to read the descriptions of the experts who offered these ideas, in addition to more information about each view.

Preventable deaths, injuries, and illnesses have been found to be caused by emergency room delays. ER waiting times have increased from 22 minutes in 1997 to 30 minutes in 2004. Heart attack patients are exposed to more serious dangers as their wait time has doubled on average, but the risks caused by delay are great. In a study in the journal Health Affairs, 1/4 of heart attack patients had to wait 50 minutes or more before getting treatment.

The lack of universal health insurance in America, as well as the closure of emergency rooms around the country have contributed to the overflowing waiting rooms where patients may wait dangerous amounts of time. People without healthcare insurance are often forced to visit emergency rooms for free care, regardless of urgency.