Agreed. However, do you agree that there is negligent behavior and that sometimes people suffer as a consequence? Should those people-no matter how many or few they are be forced to give up their right to legal grievance? I think not.

I wish nurses were named in suits- I believe that they should be accountable to standard of care and not coerced into taking the role of non-thinking dummy “who only follows doctors orders”. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard nurses testify in deposition or at trial- “the doctor ordered discharge- he knew the BP was critically low- who am I to question that order?”; Or my boss makes me take an unsafe patient assignment- I have to do it or I’ll be fired (which by the way is true)…
Perhaps, the firms filing your cases are inexperienced or of ill repute because it has been my experience that great effort goes into triaging cases for merit prior to suit filing whenever possible.

Yes, the defense wins 80 plus percent of the time. What I have issue is your statement “even with true negligence”. There is not basis for stating “true negligence”

As a provider I do have control. My insurance company could have settled for less than 50K. They spent over 200K taking it to trial for me for a unanimous 12-0 defense verdict.

On another case pending, if anything the nurse was negligent. Of course the nurse is not named. I am because I am the doctor.

Here is what I have learned from my suits: People with bad disease processes die. Nothing could of been done to reverse it. No amount of system and procedure analysis could affect that.

You wrote: “Do you think providers and the insurance companies want to drag things out and be involved. Clear negligence and a check is usually written.”

That is not at all the case, not even close. It is extraordinarily rare for an insurer to settle a medical malpractice case prior to the disposition of summary judgment, and usually they wait until after the main pretrial rulings. The reasons why deserve a separate post; in short, no insurance company wants to look soft and none part with money before they have to.

Chip:
“Do you think providers and the insurance companies want to drag things out and be involved”

Answer- YES, the provider actually has little control- the insurance company does. It saves them money to drag out litigation.
For example: A patient who is brain injured might die during the delay- saving potentially millions to the insurance company because the life care expenses are reduced.

While nurses may not have “skin in the game” we certainly grow weary of watching our patients die because of inadequate care. This is why nurses are advocating life-saving reform as opposed to skin-saving reform- http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ohio

I am sorry that you have been named in so many suits. Hopefully, you learned from those cases and used the opportunity to assist in analysis of systems and procedures to improve patient care.

It is the defense attorneys role to create confusion and controversy about damages and causation-even if there is none.

To create a new culture will take more than internal dialogue but the real change I want to effect is to not have RN’s and MD’s go home with a knot in their stomach over something that isn’t care related but the fear that someone will try and create that connection that doesn’t understand the standard of care and take our precious resource of experienced and sound clinicians AWAY from the bedside and distract them in hopes of making a buck.

I think it was another ER nurse that realizes health care is not a “right” it is a resource. Thank you for the healthy debate.

Proof please. Do you think providers and the insurance companies want to drag things out and be involved. Clear negligence and a check is usually written. Cases proceed when there is causation and damages are really controversial.

Nurses are lucky. They never have any skin in the game. I have been named in about 7 suits over the years. Those nurses never even know about it because the hospital is named.

you are very scary with little grasp of the overall issues. I hope you don’t work in my hospital

One solution to many of the factors that contribute to this problem is single payer healthcare. People would not have financial devestation from medical bills and hospitals would not have the financial incentive to cut back on care because they could budget globally. Linking reimbursement to quality would help as well- CMS never events force providers to consider evidence based interventions and systematically implement them.

I also know being sued sucks, and I appreciate the stress involved.

Political discussions sometimes get so emotional that it’s forgotten that there are people, on BOTH sides, who are affected by them, and we allow ourselves to get more shrill than we intend to those on the other side of the position.