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| Litigious Prone Providers Profiles: Could you [inadvertently] be one of Them? |
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by Marcos A. Vargas, MSHA, PA-C - November 22, 2010
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A word of caution: not every medical malpractice claim is the result of professional negligent care. Moreover, there’s no shortage of reasons why patients sue NPs & PAs nowadays.
In fact, the great majority of lawsuits brought forth are considered non-meritorious if no damages & all 3 other elements [duty/breach/causation] of medical malpractice are not met. Meaning that they are mostly based on the individual’s negative experiences or misperceptions of their medical care rather than having suffered an actual medical misadventure.
So why or what underlying reason(s) exactly compels a patient to seek legal remediation beyond the obvious—an adverse outcome due to an unfortunate mishap (i.e. wrongful death due to failure to perform a timely operation/biopsy)?
While a million reasons sort-of-speak may exist, they primarily sue to “protect others” and secondly to obtain revenge or “teach the provider a lesson”.
But basically today’s reality is this: we live in a very litigious society. Plus we work in a service oriented industry in which patients not only expect professional accountability, but also very high qualitative services too. Therefore, more and more patients believe that when things don’t "measure up” or “go their way,” they have a right to sue for their unmet needs or unreasonable expectations.
So the key to avoid becoming embroiled in one of these potential non-meritorious lawsuits is to not only rely on your malpractice policies to offset med-mal allegations, but to proactively dispel the following non-patient-centered misperceptions undermining any potential patient-provider relationship.
Here are a few of the common root causes (CRC) & provider's profiles that unfortunately propel patients to sue time after time:
Profile # 1: Provider Gave Treatment(s) and Outcome(s) Guarantees:
Never provide unequivocal assurances, otherwise you will jeopardize and/or compromise your clinical credibility. Not to mention that providing convincing certitude or assurances have haunted many clinicians, especially if the cosmetic results were less than favorable or expected by the patient.
Profile # 2: Provider’s Poor Interpersonal Skills:
Clearly, one thing that patients have voiced their opinions survey after survey is their intolerance and disdain for the paternalistic, arrogant, rude and/or inconsiderate clinician. Nor condescension is the mark of a good bedside manner in the eyes of patients and even more lay juries for that matter.
Remember if any or all of these describe you, chances are that your patients will be unforgiving of any unexpected outcome.
Profile # 3: Non-Communicative Provider:
People can become easily frustrated and angered in any relationship where there is a non-communicating party. They feel alienated and uninformed about their treatment, their course and possibly their prognosis. Be sure to take time, explain things, and establish eye contact with your patient when discussing your therapeutic plan.
Often times, unconsciously, this practice is omitted because we find ourselves so hurried and busy in our practices that we scarcely communicate, which detrimentally erodes the patient-provider partnering alliance. In fact, many cases have been raised under the “failure to inform” (a.k.a. “lack of informed consent” particularly when diagnostic and/or procedural interventions were involved.)
Profile # 4: The Unavailable Provider:
In our working lives, we all have competing clinical priorities and at times we are time-constrained, thus limiting our abilities to return calls or provide results promptly with an empathetic tone behind our words. Unfortunately many patients may read this “unavailability” as uncaring, especially if they felt they lacked the timely information so urgently needed before undergoing that botched elective procedure.
In brief, patients don’t hesitate to sue a perceived uncaring or unsympathetic clinician if an adverse outcome results. So don’t be too busy for your patient’s concerns or patients’ family queries-- they may think and feel abandoned.
Profile # 5: Provider is a Poor Listener:
Nothing can be more detrimental than a “proud” clinician who thinks and behaves as they know it all by disregarding or trivializing the patient’s or his/her family concerns. This one is probably the most egregious trait that a provider can have. Why? Because the patient doesn’t feel “trusted” or that he’s listened to.
So as you can see it behooves you to concentrate your efforts into being more attentive, on becoming a better listener and be forthcoming with your clinical-decision making process or opinions if you want to build rapport into your patient-provider relations.
Surprisingly enough many patients would be willing to forego litigation, but only as long you did not mirror or fell into any of the five “non-patient-centered categories” as discussed in this article, during their darkest hour.
Marcos A. Vargas, MSHA, PA-C is a Boston born and Puerto Rican bred individual who has an extensive healthcare industry background, both industry-related as a Pharmacy Technician during his undergraduate years, and industry-specific as a dually N.C.C.P.A. certified Physician Assistant in Surgery and Primary care after graduating from the University of Alabama—Birmingham Physician/Surgeon’s Assistant Program. He has held clinical positions in Cardiothoracic, General Surgery, & Emergency Medicine over the past twenty years. He holds a Master’s in Science Administration from Central Michigan University and a Healthcare Risk Management graduate certificate. He has been retained and consulted regularly by both plaintiff & defense law firms over the past 14 years. During this time, he has served as both a consulting medical reviewer and a PA expert. Marcos has lectured on Clinical Risk Management (PA) issues throughout the years to various Michigan-based PA Training Programs. He has done the same for lay audiences, covering a wide range of “Wellness” topics. He has been a supporter and associate member of numerous professional clinical and non-clinical organizations. Currently he is employed as an orthopedic PA at HMC.
The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.
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| Marcos A. Vargas, MSHA,PA-C (Flushing, MI) |
on 07 Dec 2010 at 9:18 pm |
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Personally I'm most delighted to read your complementary comment, but more importantly I was glad to raise your levels of awareness in those areas discussed in the article.
Again, glad to help out some in your career.
Marcos A. Vargas, MSHA,PA-C
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| BJ525 (California) |
on 30 Nov 2010 at 12:00 pm |
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| I enjoyed this article. Yes, there are areas in which I can improve. Thanks |
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