ED Legal Letter
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State Medical Board Complaint Can Fuel ED Med/Mal Suit, and Vice Versa: Don’t “Go It Alone”
It’s difficult to imagine most emergency physicians (EPs) choosing to defend themselves in a malpractice lawsuit. However, many respond to state medical board investigations without legal representation. “Many medical board complaints end up being more serious than medical malpractice lawsuits,” says Ellen M. Voss, JD, a medical malpractice defense attorney at Williams Kastner in Portland, OR.
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EPs Seeing Many More Incidental Findings: Take Steps to Reduce Liability
Failure to notify patients and their primary care providers of incidental radiology findings “definitely poses significant medicolegal liability for the emergency physician (EP),” according to Sayon Dutta, MD, an attending physician in the emergency department (ED) at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
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Will EPs Be Dismissed — or Get ‘Stuck’ in the Claim? These Are Determining Factors
Understandably, emergency physicians (EPs) who believe that allegations of malpractice are unfounded don’t want to suffer through litigation one minute longer than necessary. However, getting “out” of a claim, regardless of the merits of the case against the EP, is often no easy task.
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Peer Review: How Protected Are You?
While it has definite advantages, peer review presents unique and significant challenges, particularly for the individual provider.
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Missing Documentation on Evolving High-risk Conditions? It Will Complicate Defense of Medical/Malpractice Suit
Lack of documentation on patients with high-risk-conditions often results in the settlement of otherwise defensible claims against emergency physicians (EPs), according to Douglas Segan, MD, JD, FACEP, a medical-legal consultant based in Woodmere, NY.
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Warning: ED Peer Review Materials Aren’t Always Protected from Discovery
Many emergency physicians (EPs) assume that all aspects of the peer review or quality improvement processes involving emergency department (ED) care are automatically protected from discovery during malpractice litigation. This is not necessarily the case.
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Here Are Plaintiff Attorneys’ Toughest Deposition Questions for Emergency Physicians
Did an emergency physician (EP) come off poorly during a deposition, volunteer some damaging information, or inadvertently complicate the defense of a co-defendant? If so, “it will significantly change the perspective of the defense attorney, the hospital, or the insurance company on whether the case should settle and for how much, in a way that’s going to be adverse to the EP,” warns John Burton, MD, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.
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Less-than-honest Responses? Too-loose Lips? These Actions Complicate EP’s Malpractice Defense
A recent malpractice case involved a patient who was discharged from an emergency department (ED) with a diagnosis of benign positional vertigo. “She was having a stroke, and was returned to the hospital a few hours later with an occluded basilar artery,” says Gary Mims, JD, a partner at Sickels, Frei and Mims in Fairfax, VA.
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Nursing Notes Can Become Unexpected Problem for EP During Med/Mal Litigation
A triage nurse’s note stating that a patient had fever and hip pain in his prosthetic hip became a key area of focus during a recent malpractice trial. At deposition and at trial, the emergency physician (EP) claimed to have examined the hip, and found that the patient did not have increased pain with range of motion.
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Malpractice Reform Didn’t Change EPs’ Practices
Three states enacted legislation that changed the malpractice standard for emergency care to gross negligence.