Medical malpractice is a lot more common than you might think.
One 2011 study revealed that about 75% of doctors practicing low-risk specialties and about 99% of doctors practicing high-risk specialties will be sued at least once by the time they turn 65.
If you own or operate a medical office, it’s important you’re aware of the possibility of patients suing for malpractice and avoid it at all costs. It’s also important to learn about the different types of lawsuits your office could face.
Here are four lawsuits that your medical office could encounter someday.
1. Misdiagnosis
When a patient walks into your medical office with a health issue, they expect you to correctly diagnose their condition.
But it’s not always easy to do that. There are some health issues that can have hidden symptoms and some that have the same symptoms as other conditions.
As a result of this, about 5% of Americans are misdiagnosed with the wrong health issue every year. That works out to be about 12 million people in total.
It’s important for medical offices to be careful about jumping to conclusions when diagnosing patients. Make sure you’re 100% confident in your diagnosis before offering it up to a patient.
This means performing a thorough exam followed by diagnostic testing. If necessary, refer them to a specialist more experienced in dealing with whatever issue you think the patient might have. While you might lose the initial business, you’ll be saving yourself lots of legal headaches down the road.
2. Treatment Errors
After a doctor gives a patient a diagnosis, the next thing they’ll do is come up with a treatment plan. The treatment might include anything from prescribing a medication to scheduling surgery.
There are a lot of people suing for malpractice these days because their doctor didn’t provide the best possible treatment for them. Be sure that whatever treatment plan you prescribe is thorough and will address all symptoms and ailments associated with the patient’s condition.
3. Surgical Errors
Surgery is probably one of the most serious procedures performed on patients. And it requires doctors and medical offices to take countless precautions to avoid surgical errors.
They check (and double-check!) to make sure they’re performing the right surgery on the right patient before getting started. They also do their best to mark the specific body parts that are being operated on.
But believe it or not, there are still thousands of surgical errors made every year. These including operating on the wrong body part, or in some cases, the wrong patient!
According to Jeffrey Preszler of PreszlerLaw.com, operating on the wrong part of the body is a surgical error that occurs more frequently than other surgical errors.
4. Prescription Errors
There are more Americans taking prescription drugs today than ever before. Almost 50% of people take at least one prescribed medication every day.
Many of these medications are helping prolong people’s lives and improve the overall quality of life. But some medications might be doing more harm than good.
The uptick in prescription drug use has also led to an uptick in prescription errors made by doctors. These errors are leaving medical offices susceptible to lawsuits as more people are suing for malpractice.
How to Prevent Patients From Suing for Malpractice
Doctors are human, and they’re inevitably going to make mistakes from time to time. But as a doctor, it’s your job to limit your mistakes – especially big ones.
Otherwise, you shouldn’t be surprised when people start suing for malpractice. You also shouldn’t be surprised when malpractice lawsuits start to ruin your reputation and made it difficult for you to run a successful medical office.
Read our blog to learn more ways to protect yourself and your medical practice.
