Some coverage headaches are caused by sloppy handling of claim reports by physicians and health care professionals. Consider a scenario where a physician did not immediately report an adverse medical outcome or a claim to her insurer. In fact, the physician procrastinated before reporting it to the insurer because [...]
Problems arises when physicians take matters into their own hands and try to self-handle a liability claim. Example: The patient seemed like a reasonable person, and you thought you could handle the matter without bothering the insurance company. In fact, the claimant was a little old lady who assured [...]
Avoidance is a well-recognized risk management strategy. It means consciously forgoing involvement in an activity because of the potential liability consequences. For example, some observers note that there are now very few companies that manufacture football helmets, single-engine airplanes or intra-uterine devices. In all three examples, the costs of [...]
Should physicians bet their practices by assuming they will have no medical malpractice claims? Some experts would answer, “No.” Nevertheless, some physicians believe they can forgo liability insurance and “go bare.” As a risk management technique, going bare, or retention, occurs when physicians decide to fund their losses instead of [...]
What a physician and a medical practice’s front line staff says to a patient after an adverse result can affect that practitioner’s chances of successfully defending a liability claim. Watch what you say — know what NOT to say. Foot-in-mouth disease can be expensive when it comes to handling patient [...]
By: Nadine Nasser Donovan, Esq. Introduction This blog post provides a succinct checklist of what a medical defendant should do when sued or put on notice of a medical malpractice claim. This information has been adapted from Medical Malpractice Survival Training for Physicians, available from SEAK here as part of a [...]
We have all heard the adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” This is very true in the realm of medical malpractice risk management. The cheapest claim is the one that either didn’t occur or which was nipped in the bud before it had a chance [...]