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MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
Jack Bevilacqua, CHC, CPC
How to Lose a Malpractice Case
Here are the strategies plaintiffs' lawyers don't want you to know.
utpatient surgery is largely safe and uncomplicated, but when
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errors do occur, a medical malpractice lawsuit can follow.
Based on my time working for a plaintiff firm, here are insights
on what these firms look for, so you can better defend yourself.
The assessment
When talking to potential new clients, plaintiff attorneys look at 2
things:
• Who is the owner/management company? This will tell them assets
and insurance, which equals potential for settlement.
• What are the injuries? This will tell them the potential for settlement
in dollars.
The firm I worked for had a process. We initially accepted almost
any case, unless it happened at a facility with a single owner or very
few owners, and with very low insurance limits. Intake personnel at
plaintiff firms are trained to ask leading questions and to filter out the
cases worth investing time and money in. My firm had a blueprint for
asking former and current employees questions about staffing, supplies, monitoring and the overall attitude toward care — a comprehensive tool to determine risk management that could be used in a
claim.
If warranted, we'd request the records and conduct a review to
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | J A N U A R Y 2013
