Doctor-Patient Relationship Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

December 30, 2022

Getting and keeping your own medical records: It’s a boon to better health

A laptop and a cardboard box. These two items could be major tools in improving regular folks’ health throughout this year — and beyond — if they get launched on important tasks, pronto.

What needs to happen is for patients to be hyperconscious, persistent, and skeptical enough to start gathering vital records about themselves and their medical care. The documents they should have handy include all their medical records, as well as a file of any bills, insurance statements, and correspondence with providers about their treatment.

It might seem like a lot of bumpf. But consider, with patience: Doctors value the material so much that they make it their prime order of business in taking on a patient’s care to look fast and first at the individual’s health record.

December 27, 2022

Patients may need to take steps to optimize time with harried doctors

by Patrick A. Malone

In recent times, one of the issues most complained about by patients comes down to this: Why does my doctor zip through my office visit and fail to give me the attention I need and deserve?

To be sure, doctors these days struggle ever more with “efficiency” pushes in medicine by profit-obsessed business interests and private investors, combined with administrative demands — especially those tied to electronic health records.

These and other factors devour doctors’ frontline practice time. High-level policy makers, politicians, and regulators eventually may be forced to grapple with the rightful concern by regular folks that, as patients, they now confront the reality that a primary care doctor will spend on average 18 minutes with them in an office visit.

December 9, 2022

While surgeons operate often on the elderly, studies are just starting to detail the risks

by Patrick A. Malone

Seniors and their loved ones should take note of new and increasing data that researchers are developing about the risks undertaken by elderly patients who choose to undergo significant surgeries — procedures that make up a little less than half of costly operations performed in this country.

The numbers about invasive medical work can be mind-changing, especially for those with age-associated conditions, the independent, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service reported. As KHN’s “navigating aging” columnist Judith Graham wrote:

“Nearly 1 in 7 older adults die within a year of undergoing major surgery, according to an important new study that sheds much-needed light on the risks seniors face when having invasive procedures. Especially vulnerable are older patients with probable dementia (33% die within a year) and frailty (28%), as well as those having emergency surgeries (22%). Advanced age also amplifies risk: Patients who were 90 or older were six times as likely to die than those ages 65 to 69. The study in JAMA Surgery, published by researchers at Yale School of Medicine, addresses a notable gap in research: Though patients 65 and older undergo nearly 40% of all surgeries in the U.S., detailed national data about the outcomes of these procedures has been largely missing.”

November 13, 2022

Voters got their say on major health concerns in 2022 midterms

by Patrick A. Malone

Voters from coast to coast made decisions last week not just about which candidates to favor but also about an array of health-related concerns from abortion to health insurance expansion to legalized ways to get high.

Women’s reproductive rights: a big deal

A major motivator in the 2022 midterm elections was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to abolish the constitutional right to abortion and leave it to the states to decide women’s reproductive health rights.

October 19, 2022

Costly colonoscopies get skeptical scrutiny in big European study

by Patrick A. Malone

Colorectal cancer remains the third most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in this country. It kills tens of thousands of Americans annually. Although detection of the illness is declining overall, and especially among older adults, specialists have expressed growing concern about its rising rates in younger patients. This has prompted experts to push for more screenings to discover this cancer earlier.

But a new, decade-long European study involving 80,000 participants has given experts in the field at least a pause and may be forcing a more nuanced consideration of colonoscopies — long considered a pricey, inconvenient, intrusive, but “gold standard” test in the battle against colorectal cancer.

The study offered a brusque reminder, especially to regular folks, that testing and early detection of serious illnesses do not automatically result in optimal outcomes that improve or extend lives. As Stat, the science and medical news site reported:

October 16, 2022

U.S. sees shameful rise in ‘maternity care deserts,’ study finds

by Patrick A. Malone

The national disgrace of expectant moms and infants suffering excessive, preventable injuries and death can’t be blamed on mysterious causes. Indeed, a leading advocacy group has put out yet another of its damning research studies, reporting on the disturbing increase in what it terms “maternity care deserts.”

The March of Dimes says it has analyzed data county by county to discover that too many areas of this country have “no hospitals providing obstetric care, no birth centers, no obstetrician/gynecologist, and no certified nurse midwives.”

The nonprofit organization classified an unacceptable number of counties “as having low access to maternity care services,” meaning they have “one or fewer hospitals offering OB service and fewer than 60 OB providers per 10,000 births, and the proportion of women without health insurance was 10 percent or greater.”

October 14, 2022

U.S. toughens law to ensure patients’ full access to their medical records

by Patrick A. Malone

Patients have hit a red-letter day in the long, too-difficult struggle to win control of a crucial part of their care — their electronic medical care records. Hospitals and other caregiving institutions no longer can block access to these documents, with federal law now holding them accountable for any runarounds they may try.

As Stat, a medical and science news site, reported:

“Under federal rules taking effect [Oct. 6,2022], health care organizations must give patients unfettered access to their full health records in digital format. No more long delays. No more fax machines. No more exorbitant charges for printed pages. Just the data, please — now. ‘My great hope is that this will turn the tide on the culture of information blocking,’ said Lisa Bari, CEO of Civitas Networks for Health, a nonprofit that supports medical data sharing. ‘It’s a ground level thing to me: We need to make sure information flows the way patients want it to.’”

September 30, 2022

MDs should screen most adults for anxiety, top U.S. advisory panel says

by Patrick A. Malone

Americans live such nerve-wracking, glum, stressful lives that not only young people but also adults up to age 65 would benefit from regular screening during their doctor visits for anxiety and depression.

That’s the draft recommendation, newly issued and up for public comment, by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, blue-ribbon group that provides influential guidance to the federal government on medical tests and treatments.

As the New York Times and other media outlets have reported, the task force recommendations on anxiety and depression screening for most regular folks in this country were in the works before the coronavirus pandemic hit. The advisory has only taken on greater urgency as the pandemic worsened what already were grave concerns about the nation’s mental health.

September 13, 2022

Hospital shielded heart surgeon with 21 malpractice claims, probe finds

by Patrick A. Malone

He cut a dashing figure in ads and billboards for a New England community hospital, which had an administration desperate for a lucrative heart care program in a region with famous academic medical centers. Dr. Yvon Baribeau, a Canadian-trained heart surgeon, seemed a perfect fit for the Catholic Medical Center, a place where he told colleagues he practically lived because he became one of the institution’s best-paid and busiest specialists.

He earned more than $1 million annually, and just one of his many operations brought in $200,000 to CMS before Baribeau suddenly retired at age 63.

What patients and the public didn’t know about the much-promoted surgeon was his shocking mistreatment of patients in a variety of ways, a notoriously poor medical performance that the Boston Globe has reported made him the holder of “one of the worst surgical malpractice records among all physicians in the United States.”

September 11, 2022

U.S. judge cites religious freedoms in striking down insurance coverage for HIV drugs

by Patrick A. Malone

While increasing numbers of Americans tell pollsters that they are forgoing religion and seeing its practice diminish in importance in their lives, those with religious fervor are finding a federal judiciary willing to delve into the complexity of faith and medicine in deeply polarizing ways.

The looming midterm elections, pollsters say, already have been upended by the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of a half-century of settled law in turning back to the states critical decisions about women’s reproductive health and the allowance of abortions, including in cases involving rape and incest.

A federal judge in Texas with demonstrated extreme views has further stoked the increasing fires over religion and health care by ruling unconstitutional the process by which Obamacare decides what kinds of preventive health care must be covered by private health insurance, as the New York Times and other media outlets have reported.