Posts tagged Medical Malpractice

• Physicians' Group Sues the Texas Medical Board

  Brooks Schuelke | December 28, 2007 9:06 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  As part of Texas' 2003 tort reform, the Texas Medical Board was given more resources and more powers to police doctors. Where "regulation" through medical malpractice cases decreased, the TMB was supposed to take up the slack to help keep Texans safe. And the TMB started going after doctors. So much so that physicians groups asked legislators to hold hearings on the new TMB enforcement. The...

• Texas Hospital Files Suit Against Critical Blogger

  Brooks Schuelke | September 20, 2007 3:55 PM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  It's not really medical malpractice news, but a Texas hospital, the Paris Regional Medical Center, has filed suit against an anonymous blogger who has been critical of the hospital's practices, including claims that the hospital "values the individual staff member or patient less than the buck" (an allegation that some personal injury lawyers think might be applicable to more hospitals than just...

• Many Doctors Requiring Arbitration Agreements

  Brooks Schuelke | March 28, 2008 10:13 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  In a disturbing new trend, many doctors and other medical groups are requiring patients to enter into arbitration agreements prior to the doctors providing medical care. There are many problems with pre-dispute arbitration agreements, and the biggest in my mind is that the patient is giving up rights without the benefit of counsel. Most people don't know that arbitration can be as expensive...

• Doctors Billing For Medical Malpractice

  Brooks Schuelke | March 02, 2008 1:31 PM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  There has been a bit of a debate recently about doctors and hospitals billing for services when they commit medical malpractice. Indeed, since last fall, hospitals in 10 states have agreed to waive fees for certain errors called "never events" because experts say they should never happen. But MSNBC has a new story about a medical malpractice charge that may take the cake. As the story...

• Texas Medical Malpractice Caps Challenged

  Brooks Schuelke | February 29, 2008 2:31 PM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Former Dallas Cowboy Ron Springs and 11 other plaintiffs filed suit Monday seeking an order from a judge that Texas's medical malpractice caps violate various provisions of the United States Constitution. The challenge is the first federal constitutional challenge to the statute.We will try and keep you posted as the case progresses.

• Tort Reform Not Working In Ohio

  Brooks Schuelke | March 29, 2008 10:31 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  One of the benefits of tort "reform", according to its supporters, is that reform is supposed to increase access to care by making more physicians available. But in Ohio, the data is now in. Five years after the state enacted medical malpractice caps, there are fewer doctors delivering babies. Recent data also questions the claim that tort reform was necessary due to rising insurance rates. ...

• Are Texas's Medical Malpractice Caps Constitutional?

  Brooks Schuelke | February 14, 2008 12:39 PM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Some lobbyist groups would like to believe so, and they've filed a new suit to try and prove it. The case stems from a medical malpractice case in Corpus. There, a Corpus doctor was sued by one of his patients after the patient developed a severe infection after a surgery. In the suit, the patient asserted that the medical malpractice damage caps violated several provisions of the Texas...

• John Ritter -- A Medical Malpractice Case Still Worth Taking

  Brooks Schuelke | February 04, 2008 9:48 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Tomorrow, a medical malpractice trial is scheduled to start involving the death of actor John Ritter (the family has previously settled with the hospital involved). In the trial, the Ritter family is seeking an award of $67 million, an amount that the family claims Mr. Ritter would have earned for his continued acting on the show "8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter." The case is a...

• Arbitration in the Medical Malpractice Context

  Brooks Schuelke | February 13, 2008 9:43 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  This weekend, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about a disturbing trend of mandatory arbitration agreements showing up in the medical malpractice context. The article states:Within the space of two weeks late last year, Michael and Hedy Cohen, who happen to be experts on medical errors, each encountered what they saw as a disturbing development in the modern doctor-patient relationship. They...

• Physicians Should Disclose Gifts From Pharmaceutical Companies

  Brooks Schuelke | November 01, 2007 9:49 AM | 0 CommentsAustin, TX Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  The recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the controversial issue of pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers of medical devices providing free gifts to physicians that prescribe their products. The article states that 94% of physicians have some type of relationship with the industry. The article best summarized the debate with the following quote:From a policy...