I get it.  Insurance companies are in business to make money.  I don’t begrudge them a reasonable profit.  However, as evidenced by their behavior over the years, they can’t seem to operate without taking advantage of patients and patients are being hurt by their practices.

Health insurance is a necessity for most Americans, but it should not be.  As I have pointed out often in the past, we are the only major industrial country without universal health insurance.  This results in a number of bad things happening to Americans that just should not happen.  As just a single example, expectant…
Continue Reading Hard To Believe But Insurance Company Policies Hurt Patients

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a big fan of state medical boards.  My complaint is that there is a lot of malpractice out there and the medical boards do not do an effective job of weeding out the doctors who regularly make mistakes that kill and injure patients.  On the other hand, while they may not do all the things they could to protect the public, they do provide much needed expertise and oversight of the medical profession.  That important oversight is being threatened across the country by state legislatures.

A recent piece in the …
Continue Reading State Legislatures Are Making Your Health Care Less Safe

If you are like most people who believe they have been the victim of medical malpractice, you are probably going to go on the internet and type in “medical malpractice lawyer” or something similar.  When the results pop up, you will find a lot of attorneys who want to be your lawyer.  Again, if you are like most people, you will call someone who is listed on the first page of the search results.  Unless you actually check the qualifications of the attorney before you call, you may get a rude surprise on down the road.

Any lawyer can claim…
Continue Reading Let Me Be Your Medical Malpractice Lawyer.

The medical profession knows that there is a patient safety problem.  Every time they examine patient safety, they find the same thing.  People in hospitals are injured at an unacceptable rate and the doctors and hospitals seem to be unable to do anything about it.

In January, another study of hospital safety was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.  The study was funded by two malpractice insurance companies.  The authors were a number of doctors who wanted to see what the most recent data showed about patient safety in hospitals.  They examined randomly selected patient charts…
Continue Reading Hospitals Are Still Unsafe

There is a comfortable myth in which doctors love to wrap themselves.  It is the myth that most medical malpractice cases are frivolous attempts to extort money from doctors.  According to the myth, doctors are the good guys and lawyers representing patients are crooks and shysters.  The public never really gets to see the facts that would let them decide if this myth is true or not.  The true facts are hidden behind a wall of secrecy and non-disclosure agreements that doctors use when they settle claims against themselves.  Every once in a while though, someone does get access to…
Continue Reading The True Scandal of the Medical Malpractice System

If you have been injured by medical malpractice, you have a very difficult road ahead of you.  In the first place, you are going to have to figure out, usually on your own, that you have been the victim of malpractice.  Then you have to find a good attorney, who is experienced in malpractice cases and who is willing to take your case.  As I have discussed on this blog before, there are many good reasons why an attorney may not be able to take your case, even when you have been malpracticed upon.  At our firm, I am able…
Continue Reading The Medical Malpractice System Is Stacked Against You

Last month I wrote about how greed in health care led to selling drugs and fleecing Medicare.  Today’s post is about practices that are even worse and harm far more people.  It relates to the purchase by private equity of many providers of health care from doctors’ practices to emergency departments to nursing homes.  Private equity has invested trillions in the purchase of health care providers and wants a return on its investment.  This is bad news for all of us.

When there is a drive for profit and return on investment, patient care must, of necessity, take a back…
Continue Reading Greed In Health Care Harms Patients

Today’s blog post is about an unusual medical malpractice verdict.  The first thing that makes it unusual is that the jury found in favor of the plaintiff.  That just does not happen very often.  Here in Arizona and across the country, doctors win 85% to 90% of medical malpractice cases that go to trial.
The second unusual thing about the verdict was its size.  The jury awarded $43.5 million.  That is a lot of money in any case, but especially in a medical malpractice case that did not involve brain damage and the future cost of long-term care.
The third…
Continue Reading An Unusual Medical Malpractice Verdict

Many patients have wondered what to do when the surgeon tells them they need surgery.  One thing you should not do is just say, “OK” without first asking some questions.

Of course, not all surgeries are the same.  Some are necessary and must be performed right away to save the life of the patient.  Some are elective and are not essential to the health of the patient at all, such as most cosmetic procedures.  Except in the case of the life-saving surgery which must be performed immediately, take the time to ask some questions.
How necessary is this surgery?
If…
Continue Reading Do I Really Need That Surgery?

Large awards for medical malpractice are not nearly as common as the medical profession and its insurers would have you believe.  Juries are reluctant to hold doctors responsible for injuring patients.  They don’t want to believe that doctors make mistakes that kill and injure people.  When there is a large award, a review of the facts almost always shows that it was justified.  Today, I will discuss the facts that led a federal judge to award $14.2 M to an 8 year-old child and his parents in their claim against the federal government for medical malpractice.

During his first year…
Continue Reading A Large Malpractice Award Was Justified.

A Utah plastic surgeon has been charged by the United States with health care fraud and conspiracy arising out of a year-long scheme to sell fake Covid vaccination cards.  The cards were sold for $50 each.  It is unclear exactly how many cards were sold.

In addition to selling the fake cards, the doctor and members of his office staff also destroyed over doses of vaccine that they received that were worth over $28,000.  They pretended to administer these destroyed doses, but did not.  In some cases, children were injected with saline rather than actual vaccine.  The saline injections were…
Continue Reading Covid and the Bad Doctor

Hospitals are where the germs are.  Hospitals are also where the worst germs are.  Sick people are constantly coming to the hospital and bringing their viruses and bacteria with them.  In spite of the best efforts, and sometimes less than the best efforts, of the nurses and staff, bacteria and viruses get passed from one patient to another.  This is the story of one of those less than best efforts that left three newborns dead and one badly brain damaged.

The deaths and injuries occurred in a good-sized hospital in central Pennsylvania.  It had an excellent reputation in the community…
Continue Reading A Case of Hospital Malpractice

It is no secret that the cost of medical care is rising and rising at a rate faster than inflation.  This wave of rising costs is being led by an even larger rise in the cost of hospital care.  Hospitals receive $1 out of every $3 spent on health care in this country.  How can hospitals get away with this?  The answer is found in our old Monopoly game.  Remember how the more of a property you owned, the higher the rent you charged?  As hospital chains grow larger, they reduce competition in their areas and reduced competition almost invariably…
Continue Reading When Thinking About Hospital Bills, Remember Your Old Monopoly Game.