{"id":481,"date":"2009-11-10T16:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T20:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=481"},"modified":"2009-11-10T16:33:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T20:33:00","slug":"how-to-reform-the-broken-medical-malpractice-system-by-darshak-sanghavi-slate-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=481","title":{"rendered":"How to reform the broken medical malpractice system. – By Darshak Sanghavi – Slate Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to reform the broken medical malpractice system. – By Darshak Sanghavi – Slate Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

For many doctors, the malpractice case<\/a> against a family physician named Daniel Merenstein epitomized how the broken medical liability system drives up costs. In 1999, Merenstein, then a resident, saw a 53-year-old man for a routine checkup and discussed with him the dubious value of a blood test to screen for prostate cancer. Since the test leads to many false positives and pointless treatments that can cause impotence and other harm, neither the American Cancer Society<\/a> nor U.S. Public Health Service<\/a> support its routine use. Presented with the data, the patient chose not to get the test. <\/p>\n

When the man later developed prostate cancer, he sued Merenstein and the residency training program and ultimately won $1 million. According to the plaintiff’s attorney, the doctor should have ignored the evidence-based national guidelines and not even have given the patient the choice to refuse the test. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is the same story told on This American Life last month, and it is quite disturbing. In my “to-do list” for health care reform, medical liability reform is relatively low on my list*, but this story gives me pause.<\/em>
<\/em>
I hope we can address this and make following guide lines in good faith a reason to dismiss a lawsuit. For more information on guidelines and Comparative Effectiveness Research in action, <\/em>go here.<\/em><\/a>
<\/em>
*Caps are not even on my list, but there are many other things we can do that benefit patients AND physicians, as outlined in this Slate article, and <\/em>by the AMA.<\/em><\/a>
<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to reform the broken medical malpractice system. – By Darshak Sanghavi – Slate Magazine For many doctors, the malpractice case against a family physician named Daniel Merenstein epitomized how … Continue reading “How to reform the broken medical malpractice system. – By Darshak Sanghavi – Slate Magazine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-liability","category-practice-variation"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}