In the United States most hospitals operate for profit so it’s a bit disturbing when a report says that complications actually work to increase the profits of a hospital. In other words, as complications increase, profits increase.

Not that anyone is intentionally increasing the complication rate, but the Boston Consulting Group reports that patients on Medicare or private insurance who experience complications after surgery may provide higher profits for that hospital.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers from Harvard Medical School found when a patient experiences a blood clot, stroke, septic shock or cardiac arrest the hospital’s profit margin jumps 330 percent higher when compared to a patient with no complications.

That translates to $56,000 for a privately insured patient compared to $17,000 when the outcome is complication-free. For a Medicare patient hospitals will receive $3,600 for a patient with complications versus $1,800 for a complication-free surgery.

When a hospital has fixed costs for patients covered by Medicaid or the patient covers their own care, the hospital will make less money if it has to cover the costs of a complication.

One co-author believes the incentive process is backward.  Instead of rewarding a hospital with fewer complications, those with the most problems actually make more money on patients who have to stay in the hospital longer and receive additional care.

The Boston Consulting Group analyzed data from more than 34,000 surgeries performed at the 12-hospital system of Texas Health Resources. Among those 5.3 percent of patients or 1,820 experience some type of types of complications.

While it’s always been known there is no incentive system for quality hospitals it was never understood before just how badly things had swung in the opposite direction. An investment in reducing risk may not help underwrite hospital costs but it goes a long way in improving patient confidence and outcomes and underscores the need to focus on payment reform in conjunction with healthcare reform.

Who first uttered the words “tort reform” in the context of medical malpractice lawsuits?

It had to have been an ingenious insurance executive who has long since retired after being richly rewarded by the insurance industry.

Why? Because when it comes to “tort reform” there is a single winner: the insurance industry. Doctors and hospitals lose…or at least they win nothing. Consumers lose enormously. Taxpayers lose and victims and medical negligence are the really big losers.

An article recently published in the medical journal, Chest (Chest 2013; 143 (1): 222 – 227), the authors discussed the truth about medical malpractice in “Five Myths of Medical Malpractice”. They borrow a quote from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan that aptly characterizes how the medical malpractice crisis has been spun by the insurance industry and tort reform groups:

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Because not everyone can access the article without paying for it, let me try and summarize the important highlights of the authors’ findings.

Myth: Malpractice Crises are Caused by filing More Malpractice Litigation and “Runaway Jury Verdicts.

Completely untrue. Statistics drawn from the National Practitioner Databank demonstrate that medical negligence claims against physicians have been steadily dropping since 1992 and the numbers today are roughly one-half what they were in 1992.

Payout per physician was roughly stable from 1992 to 2001 but dropped in 2003 and is now 46% below the 1992 level.

The “runaway” jury verdicts that attract popular attention are not at all representative and often are largely reduced by judicial oversight or through other means. More broadly, the overwhelming majority (95%) of cases is resolved, and the overwhelming majority of payouts are made because of voluntary settlement.

Myth: Frivolous Medical Malpractice Cases are Rampant in the Tort System.

Wrong. Like any other notable occurrence, the press moves public focus on any substantial jury verdict; usually without regard for whether the amount was supported by the evidence. It is the amount that the press seeks to highlight. There are no statistics, anywhere, in any state, that support the notion of any numbers of frivolous malpractice claims that would be considered anything other than “wholly insignificant”.

A much larger problem exists and especially in states that have implemented tort reform:

“A far larger problem, however, is that an enormous fraction of patients who are harmed by medical negligence either make no effort to recover damages or cannot find lawyers willing to take their cases . These patients, who are entitled to compensation, never sue.”

Because plaintiffs can not afford to pay attorneys by the hour, law firms agree to take a percentage if a recovery is made. Most law firms also carry the costs of the litigation for years, at no interest. So, a lawyer reviewing a potential malpractice case carefully weighs whether the case is valid; what the damages might be; and what the cost of trying the case may be. Often, litigation may take 4 or 5 years; thousands of hours of time; and hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs; before the law firm finds out whether they get paid anything for their time and expense. This has always been the best hedge against frivolous lawsuits in medical negligence cases.

If we examine Texas where some draconian tort reform was passed in 2003, the statistics demonstrate a significant reduction in the number of medical negligence claims and the average dollar payouts (whether settled or through jury verdict) in both the “pre-tort reform” and “post tort reform” periods.

The total numbers of claims before tort reform were 7,650, which dropped to 5,300 after tort reform. Average mean payouts for all large malpractice claims went from $609,000 in the pre-tort reform period to $419,000 in the post reform period.

So, tort reform worked? It probably worked, but not in the way most people believe. When tort reform passes in a state, it makes it that much more difficult for victims of medical negligence to find attorneys willing to undertake representation in their cases. This results in patients injured by medical negligence who then go to private insurers, Medicaid and Medicare to pay for the treatment they will need because of the malpractice.

Who ultimately pays for tort reform? We do – every single person who pays health insurance premiums or taxes.

Myth: Doctors are One Malpractice Verdict Away From Bankruptcy.

First, only about 2% of all medical malpractice claims proceed to a jury verdict and in those cases medical providers win around 75% of the time.

Second, nearly every jury verdict over a physician’s policy limits was settled for their policy limits or their insurance company paid the excess the verdict because the insurance company was dealing in bad faith.

Finally, for at least a decade doctors have been taught ways to shelter their assets from any exposure to malpractice verdicts and by now most all practice this defensive asset hiding.

Myth: When Tort Reform is Passed, Physicians Move to those States in Large Numbers.

Completely false and unsupported by any statistics. The only regions that show any significant increase in physician population after passage of tort reform measures are rural areas.

Myth: Tort Reform Laws Reduce Healthcare Costs of Physicians Practicing “Defensive Medicine”.

We would need to determine whether “defensive medicine” is good medicine or patient protecting procedures; rather than defensive medicine for the sole purpose of avoiding malpractice claims. And, if “defensive medicine” is testing that is completely unnecessary and only to avoid malpractice claims is that not fraud being practiced by physicians?

Who really pays for the cost of tort reform? Injured victims of malpractice, consumers and tax payers.

Who wins? Insurance companies and corporate healthcare.

Medical negligence happens. That is a fact.

Other professional negligence happens, too.

One of the differences that distinguish medical professionals from other professionals who are negligent is tort reform laws passed by states intending to protect and insulate medical professionals from their negligence. Other professionals are apparently “on their own”.

Texas and Florida are two of the states that have passed some really draconian laws that punish patients who suffer injury as the result of a doctor’s negligence. The legislatures use a variety of arguments to pass these laws: doctors are fleeing the state, medical malpractice premiums are too high, and there are too many frivolous lawsuits.

We have written about this before and plenty of evidence documents:

• Doctors seldom “flee” a state because of malpractice lawsuits and doctors seldom come to a state because they have passed tort reform.
• Insurance company executives have testified under oath that lawsuits have little influence over malpractice premiums. Several told the Florida legislature that passage of certain tort reform laws would NOT lower premiums. Then Florida legislators passed the laws anyway.
• There is almost NO frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits filed. The cost of prosecuting a medical malpractice case is so substantial; attorneys cannot afford to pursue cases that are not reasonably clear negligence.

Let’s look at an actual case, involving a lady in Texas by the name of Connie Spears. She was taken to the hospital emergency room with complaints of severe leg pain and she told physicians about her history of blood clots. The emergency room ignored her history of blood clots and sent her home with an insignificant diagnosis. Days went by with Ms. Spear continuing to suffer pain in her legs, the legs became swollen, and she developed delusional symptoms. She was taken to another hospital where she was diagnosed with severe blood clotting causing major vessels in her legs to completely occlude.  Physicians ultimately amputated both of her legs because of tissue death from lack of blood circulation.

Texas, as Florida, has a law that establishes that a victim of negligence in an emergency room must prove the negligence was “willful and wanton”; in other words, intentional. In Ms. Spears case she would be required to prove that the emergency room doctors intended she have clots develop so severely that she would lose her legs.

Sound stupid? Sound completely ridiculous? Yes, it does; but that is exactly what the Florida legislature has done, too. It was not enough to financially protect doctors and hospitals, legislators had to go the extra mile in discouraging lawsuits against emergency room doctors.

Add to the mix that the legislatures also require, in every medical negligence case, that the plaintiff spend thousands of dollars to hire an expert to testify negligence occurred and caused the plaintiff injury.

The legislatures have also limited non-economic damages to only $250,000 against physicians. In Ms. Spear’s case, she can collect for her lost wages and future medical care, but the legislature has pre-determined that the value of losing both her legs is only $250,000.

In Ms. Spear’s case, because attorneys were worried about being required to prove the emergency room physicians “intended” to cause Ms. Spears to lose her legs, she had incredible difficulty finding an attorney to take her case. Ultimately her case was dismissed because of problems with the expert witness being unable to say the ER doctors intended the loss of Ms. Spears legs.

The lawyer for the hospital was quoted as saying:

Tina York, a lawyer for Christus Santa Rosa, said it was unusual for a case to be dismissed because of problems with an expert-witness report. The rules are in the statute, she said, to weed out plaintiffs who “can’t legally support their claim” from the beginning. (Christus Health is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)

Poppy-cock. The laws were passed to make it so expensive and so difficult to bring a medical negligence case that no attorneys would pursue even very obvious cases of egregious malpractice, as in Ms. Spears case.

Tort reform’s lawyer in Texas, Mike Hull claims, “Our purpose had never been to have a procedural hurdle, it had been to have the plaintiffs really get the case reviewed.” That is not a fair statement of tort reformers’ “purpose”. These laws create requirements that make it financially impossible to bring negligence cases and judicially impossible to sustain lawsuits.

One must wonder how these tort reform advocates, like Mr. Hull, would feel if Ms. Spears was his mother.

I have written about this case before.

This is a case where two central Florida CVS pharmacies were filling highly suspect prescriptions for powerful pain medications for patients, including for non- Florida residents. The facts of this case were egregious and no serious effort to stop financially lucrative and improper filling of fraudulent prescriptions ever occurred until after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted its investigation.

CVS has maintained they were a “busy” pharmacy. I find the comments to this article as interesting as the article itself. Many in the pharmacy industry want to blame the doctors and evade any professional responsibility in the pill mill epidemic sweeping our country. Allowing that to happen is a prescription for nothing corrected.

CVS now has “enhanced” its guidelines and submitted a new plan to the DEA. “Enhanced” is code for ok we will really plan to do something now. Rightfully, the DEA has said CVS has done too little, too late. The truth is the DEA hit them where it hurts, at the bottom line. Sadly that is often what it takes.

What if…now I’m just “spit-balling”, but what if we actually had government oversight in certain industries? What if real policing of these companies occurred and real penalties could always be handed down in exchange for bad conduct?

Yes, monitoring the disbursement of powerful pin pills might even mean a little extra work, but it is needed and it is necessary. We all need to do our part; the public, the doctors, the pharmacies and the government. However, the last real and professional gatekeeper is the pharmacy and its time they step up and look at the dispensing of dangerous medications as something other than just another way to generate an enhanced bottom line.

Kudos to the DEA. These actions will lead to future arrests to slow or stop the problem, but more importantly, future lives saved.

A read a very interesting article in the Atlantic highlighting the new Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study recently published in the British Medical Journal’s Quality and Safety Journal.

I must give these folks credit for the candor in what one could argue is an embarrassing finding for the medical community. Nonetheless, the challenging and unflattering research was still published. This study really focused on the ICU and some of the most common errors made in intensive care management.

Intensive Care Unit Room

The sad truth is that an estimated 40,000 patients may die each year from failure to properly diagnosis their conditions in the ICU. That is more than the number or people who die from breast cancer each year.

These deaths involve errors are discoverable and should be correctable. Errors in which solutions would save more lives this year without complicated and expensive new science being required.

Let’s hope it draws the needed attention. It really all boils down to lack of training and quality control. Many of us who know the medical field already know common conditions like heart attack and stroke are routinely misdiagnosed. This study proves it. The lead author, Dr. Bradford Winters, calls it “surprising and alarming”.

This study was an objective look at past literature, 31 different prior studies, as well autopsy results with confirmed diagnostic errors in adult ICU patients. Amazingly 1 in 4 (28%) had a missed diagnosis at the time of death and 8% of the time those errors are clearly linked to preventable deaths. Many times these were errors of omission, simply not doing the proper testing or ruling out of known conditions. The most common misdiagnosis were:

• Heart attacks
• Pulmonary Embolism
• Pneumonia
• Fungal infection ( Aspergillosis )

Bear in mind these mistakes were made in the ICU; the part of the hospital that typically holds the most experienced practitioners, as well as the patients’ supposedly receiving the greatest over sight and attention. Let’s hope the research and report does what the researchers intend it to do. Specifically, get the funding and attention needed in addressing ways to save lives right now with the very tools that already exist.

Kudos for bringing this to light. Realization is the first step to changing a culture of clutter, confusion, and error. Shame on hospital corporations if they do not view this as an opportunity.

Having been in the legal and insurance industry for 30 years now, I have reasonably good insight on what really does go on, but I can simply not help being surprised and disturbed by how far corporate America is willing to go.

Even when dealing with the health, life and death of human beings, it seems corporations and, in this case also doctors are willing to do almost anything to increase the profit line. According to the story in the Palm Beach Post we have a graphic example right here in our backyard; HCA Lawnwood allegedly performing unwarranted surgical procedures by its physicians to insert cardiac stents into patients who never needed them!

Motive? Profit driven.

Shocked? Well you shouldn’t be.

Frightened? Maybe we all should be.

Sadly, the only way we even know about these occurrences is because a Registered nurse, C.T. Tomlinson, had the courage to do the right thing and told the truth. What did he get for his courage when he told the management at HCA? You guessed it, he got his contract terminated and through HCA’s own internal documents we know that Mr. Tomlinson was retaliated against. I wish I could tell this is the only dirty little secret hidden by “the white code” in medicine. You would shudder to know how many people have died or were unnecessarily injured by bad medicine and no one was told the truth.

The medical community and insurance companies are fond of claiming that unnecessary tests and procedures are ordered because doctors fear lawsuits. The fact is they get paid for every test or procedure they order. Justifying it by claiming they are protecting themselves is simply a convenient route to the bottom line and increased profits.

Medical mistakes occurring because profit is an overriding motivation is much more common than people realize.  And realistically, the patient seldom has possession of their own medical records; so lost, misplaced and “amended” medical records also happen more than most people realize.

There is an unfortunate public mindset that medical errors happen to other people, but will never happen to us. It is when you or a loved one is harmed at the hands of bad, or profit driven medicine that it hits home.

In fact it was only 6 or 7 years ago that the Tenet Healthcare Corporation paid over $350 million for doing unnecessary heart surgeries in its Redding, California hospital.

So, we should be careful to not marginalize whistleblowers or medical practice lawyers who, at best are simply able to level the playing field by a mere fraction and then only for some victims.

As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thank goodness for brave nurses like C.T. Tomlinson and the majority of medical providers who are honest and use their amazing talents to save lives day in and day out. There is no doubt we need more of the type courage displayed by Nurse Tomlinson who has now helped saved lives, who knows, maybe yours or mine.

Every so often a law comes along that so blatantly discriminates against one group of people that we all must stop and wonder how legislators can justify their actions even to themselves.

It may be that the target of such obviously unfair laws is no longer limited to race or religion. Instead, many of the individuals that now face the most significant discrimination are the poorest among us; whose lower socioeconomic status apparently entitles them to less justice than the rest of us. That is very certainly an opinion that a majority of our legislators held when they recently passed Florida Statute § 766.118(6).

A recent manifestation of their apparent lack of concern for the less fortunate in Florida,  F.S. § 766.118(6), purposely limits the ability of Medicaid recipients to make the same financial recovery as non-Medicaid patients. Florida Statute 766.118 was originally enacted in 2003 with the Florida legislature placing caps on what non-economic damages a plaintiff can recover in a lawsuit arising from medical negligence.

Non-economic damages in Florida include portions of a judgment allocated for:

• pain and suffering
• mental anguish
• loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life

Simply, this means that regardless of what a jury decides that an injured person’s pain & suffering is valued at, that recovery is limited to whatever the legislative branch dictates. This is true without regard for the individual of that person’s injuries, disabilities, or their suffering.  Apparently, Florida lawmakers have determined that the citizens of our state that take the time to serve as jurors are simply incapable of hearing evidence in a case first hand and then rendering an acceptable award of damages.

The Florida Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in McCall v. The United States of America over whether non-economic caps on medical negligence verdicts under Florida Statute § 766.118 are unconstitutional.

Though the constitutionality of non-economic caps has been a matter of great debate since the law was passed in 2003, the 2011 amendment to the law placed even further limitations on recovery for those who receive Medicaid. Florida Statute §766.118(6) limits a Medicaid patient that is the victim of medical negligence to a recovery of only $300,000 in non-economic damages and only $200,000 from a single practitioner or doctor. This is considerably less than the other caps imposed by Florida Statute §768.118, on anyone who is not a Medicaid recipient.

For example, in cases involving death or a permanent vegetative state, a non-Medicaid individual may recover up to $1 million in non-economic damages from practitioners, but a Medicaid patient may only recover up to $300,000.

What it comes down to is lawmakers treating the lives of those of lower economic means with less importance and valuing the significance of their pain and suffering more cheaply than that of everyone else. With Florida Statute §766.118, the legislature decided that human lives and pain and suffering are only worth so much, while section 6 amended that to declare that the lives and suffering of the less fortunate are worth even less.

I’ve always agreed with Ghandi’s quote that, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” In Florida, our lawmakers have decided that those in the most need should be treated as inferior to everyone else.

It is all about research and publishing. That is the pressure supposedly exerted on academics, scientists and some physicians – “publish or perish”.

Scientific research is no different than any other form of research from the perspective of “garbage in garbage out”. These days most of us do some form of research on the internet. It may be simply trying to find the very best camera or the very best doctor for a tragic illness. The internet is crammed full of valuable information and…garbage. Separating the wheat from the chaff can sometimes be difficult.

Scientific research can not have the same margin of error that we may be able to live with when we are shopping for a camera, for example. Scientific and medical research has a far broader and potentially more injurious result if it is, well…garbage.

The New York Times published an article discussing the recent increase in retractions that seems to be permeating scientific and medical research. The Times interviewed two noted editors of the Journal of Infection and Immunity. They have recently discovered dozens and dozens of retractions that have had to be issued by very noted scientific journals.

One of editors told the Times that “he feared that science had turned into a winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.”

A Harvard Medical School professor stated that “there are problems all through the system.”

To be certain, this is a very scary epiphany for the scientific community to have and perhaps it really is a revelation to some of them. Sadly, it is not new to many people who have been victims of bad or skewed medical or scientific research. We have been writing about at least a portion of the problem for some time:

“Ghostwriting Mysteries of the Medical Device Industry” (2009)

“Ghosts Writing About Science and the Public Health” (2009)

“The Drug Business, Broadway, and Casper the Friendly Ghost” (2009)

“Pain Pumps and a Lack of “Reliable” Scientific Evidence” (2010)

“Scientific Research or Corporate Marketing?” (2010)

“Pride & Prejudice About Product Safety” (2010)

“Dietary Supplements — Litigating Unregulated “Drugs” (2010)

In the New York Times article the various experts offer explanations such as:

“What people do is they count papers, and they look at the prestige of the journal in which the research is published, and they see how may grant dollars scientists have, and if they don’t have funding, they don’t get promoted,” Dr. Fang said. “It’s not about the quality of the research.”

Dr. Ness likens scientists today to small-business owners, rather than people trying to satisfy their curiosity about how the world works. “You’re marketing and selling to other scientists,” she said. “To the degree you can market and sell your products better, you’re creating the revenue stream to fund your enterprise.”

Putting aside the very real danger to the lives of patients of promoting untrue, invalid or fabricated scientific research, there are also very practical, but just as damaging repercussions of this invalid research.

The medical and scientific industry has complained and whined for decades about lawyers bringing “junk science” into courtrooms in an effort to substantiate negligence cases in drug, medical device and medical negligence cases. The courts have gone so far as to impose standards, referred to in federal court as the Daubert Rule. The failure of a party to be able to have their science withstand the scrutiny of the Daubert principles can and will result in dismissal of claims. The problem is that much of the evaluation and analysis exacted in the Daubert rule is based upon research published in noted journals. Experts evaluating the science in those cases rely on research in those same scientific journals.

The ultimate damage can caused by judges who, at least in some cases, have been encouraged to dismiss cases based solely on one side or another arguing that the available research does not support the science being used by a particular party in a case. Tragically injured people have lawsuits dismissed by judges simply because the “scientific research” that the court decides to acknowledge as “authoritative” does not seem to support the claims.

We increasingly are discovering that the research used in courts to dismiss claims may be simply the result of paid “ghostwriting” by manufacturers; the greed for grant dollars; you are being a “small business owner” instead of a scientist; or the desire for career advancement.

The result? Tragically injured people, with very legitimate claims, are barred from having their “day in court”.

If you are a patient at a hospital, don’t you think you should have the right to know whether anything bad happened to you while you were there?

For years, health care providers in Florida were able to withhold records from a patient that were created as a direct result of an adverse medical incident (when bad things happen) that occurred during that patient’s care.  In 2004, Floridians overwhelmingly voted against this practice, amending the State Constitution to give patients the right to access to all records made or received as a result of an adverse medical incident. That amendment is generally referred to as “Amendment 7” because it was the 7^th amendment when it was approved.

The pertinent part of Amendment 7 sets forth:

SECTION 25. Patients’ right to know about adverse medical incidents.—

(a)  In addition to any other similar rights provided herein or by general law, patients have a right to have access to any records made or received in the course of business by a health care facility or provider relating to any adverse medical incident.

(b) In providing such access, the identity of patients involved in the incidents shall not be disclosed, and any privacy restrictions imposed by federal law shall be maintained.

Records involving an “adverse medical incident” are any records pertaining to medical negligence, intentional misconduct, and any other act, neglect, or default of a health care facility or health care provider that caused or could have caused injury to or death of a patient.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFBN761Tsg0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Since the passage of “Amendment 7”, health care providers have asserted a laundry list of confusing and flawed objections in an attempt to continue withholding records of adverse medical incidents from their patients.  The obvious harm of this conduct was that the patient was still prevented from accessing records relating to adverse medical incidents concerning that patient’s care, even when the law mandated that the patient should have access to those records.  Secondarily, the different circuit and appellate courts throughout the State were faced with the task of ruling on these objections, which resulted in inconsistent rulings governing the production of the patient’s records depending on the jurisdiction.

Fortunately, on January 12, 2012, the Supreme Court of Florida put an end to the improper withholding of patient records related to adverse medical incidents in the case of WEST FLORIDA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER, INC., etc. vs. LYNDA S. SEE, et al. (No. SC09–1997).  The Court rejected all of the objections and arguments made on behalf of the hospital, and reaffirmed the unambiguous language and intent of Amendment 7, which serves to provide patient access to records concerning adverse medical incidents, without boundaries.

Even with the recent ruling from the Supreme Court, hospitals and health care providers will undoubtedly continue to create new ways to unlawfully withhold records from patients concerning adverse medical incidents.

If you or a loved one have been injured as a result of medical malpractice it is important for you to contact an attorney specializing in the field to obtain these records; they are often vital to your case and will not be provided to you without a fight.

Physician: Before I agree to treat you, I need you to sign an arbitration agreement and a limitation of liability agreement.

Patient: What are those and why do I need to sign them?

Physician: Oh, they are nothing really for you to worry about. They only apply to you if I make an error while I am treating you and cause you damage.

Patient: So, we are starting our relationship off with an assumption that you will hurt me while treating me and, if you do, I should limit your liability for that error?

Physician: Well, I guess you could put it that way, but I prefer to look at it as you agreeing that you have faith in me as a physician and that none of that will ever really matter anyway.

Patient: I prefer that I get to keep my constitutional rights and that you buy insurance in case you screw up while treating me and cause me big bucks in further medical treatment as a result of your error.

Physician: Well, if you are going to be disagreeable before I even start treating you, I am not sure I want you as a patient.

Patient: If you are more worried about yourself, I am certain I do not want you as my doctor.

Physician: Good luck finding another one – we are all together on this one!

And so will go the discussions had in doctor’s offices and in hospitals if Senate Bills 1316 or 1506 are passed by the legislature in Florida and allowed to become law by the governor.

These bills include (3) major changes in Florida law to, once again, favor doctors over patients. It was not sufficient for hospitals and doctors to have capped damages they may have to pay in the event they negligently harm a patient. That legislation went into effect several years ago.

Now your doctor wants:

• To be able to speak with your other physicians without your permission and without the presence of you or your attorney; if you make a claim against your doctor over negligent care.
• To make it much harder to prove a case of negligence by requiring the nearly the same standard of proof required in a murder case.
• To be able to convince patients to sign mandatory arbitration agreements preventing patients from being allowed to file a lawsuit for negligence.
• To convince patients to sign an agreement further limiting the amount of damages, which can be collected in the event the physician or hospital negligently harms the patient.

All in all, what a nice little bill for the protection of doctors and hospitals.

Once again, the medical profession is taking steps to protect themselves and their own best interests; while stealing away the rights of their patients.

What is the net effect of bills like this? They are chilling since they allow health care providers to apply the threat of no signature – no treatment to patients. If patients refuse to give up constitutional rights by signing the agreements with physicians and hospitals, they may find the ability to get treatment is difficult.

The practical problem with this type of procedure is that most patients blindly sign the forms given to them by physicians and hospitals without really giving them thought or considering the effect they could have upon them.

Physicians have long abandoned the credo contained in the Hippocratic Oath: “I will apply measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

Keeping their patients from “injustice” apparently was lost along the way.