Poor and Nice – Doctors Who’re Never Sued Twice

Or even once. One of the huge downfalls of the privatized healthcare system in the USA is how a litigious society impacts healthcare. Doctors themselves, and nurses, have to take out insurance policies to protect themselves from impending lawsuits (that in the course of a career can happen multiple times due to legitimate reasons like gross negligence to frivolous lawsuits). THe former of course will face more lawsuits in his or her career.

Rising legal costs and the cost of insurance push up healthcare costs, then those rising costs are passed on to the patient or the state (thus the patient thru taxes).

Is there anyway to reduce the number of lawsuits if you’re a doctor? Turns out there is.

Now there’s the obvious reasons why a doctor would be sued, namely offering poor care.

If you do’nt want to be sued there’s two things you can do.

First is work in a comparatively poor neighborhood, or at least see patients from a lower tax bracket. Why is that? Poor people tend to sue doctor’s less. Although the data is a bit sketchy as to why, it normally is pointed towards the unwillingness for comparatively poor people to a) pursue litigation, b) have the funds to do so, c) feel as if they have the right to sue.

The other, more prevalent way to prevent lawsuits is to simply be a nice doctor. There is a measurable correlation between mean doctors (or perceived as mean) and the rate at which they get sued. If you’re a jerk physician then prepared to be sued.

So maybe pay attention to ‘bed side manner’ and take some classes on being a nicer person. If you don’t really mean it, people will respond in kind. Nobody, after all, wants to sue someone who’s been nice to them, we don’t like playing the bad guy if we don’t have to.