Category: Medical Malpractice

The Medical Review Panel Act, which was approved by Kentucky’s House and Senate Republicans in 2016, is causing serious delays with medical malpractice claims.

Under the law, individuals are required to submit their medical malpractice claims to a panel before filing a lawsuit. The panel consists of a nonvoting lawyer and three voting health care professionals. Unless they can give good reasons, doctors and other professionals are required to serve if asked and are paid $300 for their time and expertise. After reviewing the evidence, the panel must decide if the standard of care was neglected and led to injury. While this is not binding, it can be used in court.

Since the enaction of this law, there have been 531 claims assigned to the panel. 58 have been examined, 13 have been adjudicated, 18 are pending, and 27 have been withdrawn, settled, or dismissed. The remaining 89 percent have yet to be attended to.

There’s currently a debate in the medical industry regarding the safety of concurrent surgeries—multiple surgical procedures that are performed at the same time in separate operating rooms with one main, overseeing surgeon that travels back and forth between the different patients as it’s safe to do so. For years, doctors and hospitals have argued that concurrent surgeries, often referred to as double-booked surgeries, are safe. Now a new major hip operation study is suggesting differently.

The study looked at over 90,0000 orthopedic hip surgeries at 75 hospitals in Ontario, Canada. It was discovered that the longer the duration of overlap between surgeries, the more likely patients were to suffer from complications within a year after the procedure. These complications included infections and the need for a second surgery.

Researchers found that the complication rate for patients undergoing hip replacement surgery or surgery for hip fractures rose 80-90% if a surgeon was overseeing two operations for as little as 30 minutes. To be exact, the risk of complications rose 7% for every 10 minutes of overlap. Most hip surgeries overlapped for 30 to 60 minutes, the researchers found, but many overlapped for periods as long as 3 hours.

Hospitals should ensure patients that they have professionals providing quality care in a clean facility. Unfortunately, not all hospitals are the same. You might not be in the best hospital possible and in some cases, this can be deadly.

Any time you or a loved one is in a hospital, you’re probably dealing with stress and strong emotions. Whether it’s for a surgical procedure, treatment, or test, these circumstances are never easy. You’re trusting your hospital to take care of you or your loved one. It might be discouraging to know that bad hospitals are out there. But once you know what to look out for in bad hospitals and what tools you have at your disposal, you’ll have all the information you need to choose the best hospital for you or your loved one.

If you’ve been in a bad hospital in Kentucky that gave you less than ideal medical care, whether it was a misdiagnosis or a doctor or surgeon made a mistake in treatment or surgery, you might have experienced medical malpractice. This is when a medical professional’s negligence caused you harm or damage. Thomas Law Offices can help. Located in Louisville, we put your needs first. We’re prepared to handle medical malpractice cases with the attention and care you deserve.

When we visit a doctor or spend time in an emergency room, clinic, or hospital, we trust that we’ll be properly taken care of and that the staff members know what they’re doing. Despite this expectation, doctors and medical professionals make mistakes every day. One may argue that all humans make mistakes occasionally—and this is certainly true—but when we place our lives in the hands of another human being, the risk of a mistake happening has to be lowered to an absolute minimum.

A news team in Little Rock, Arkansas, reported that local nursing home residents were being encouraged to sign tort reform documents limiting damages and attorney fees they could receive should they ever become involved in a medical malpractice suit against the facility.  More than 20 different nursing home facilities investigated had staff members that had been soliciting signatures from residents with severe mental incapacities.  Family members are outraged and appalled at the underhanded action of an establishment they are expected to trust.

According to the Attorney General’s office, as long as a nursing home resident is deemed “competent” a facility is legally allowed to obtain their signature on documents without first consulting with family members or a power-of-attorney.  Competency is commonly thought of as a medical determination but it is not, rather it is a legal determination based on medical evidence.  Therefore, a resident can be suffering from severe dementia and still be competent because a court has not determined that they are incompetent.