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Q: As a family physician, I often refer patients to specialists, who order tests and then send me copies of the findings. Am I liable for malpractice if a report turns out to be wrong? A: No. You have no duty to independently evaluate medical test results ordered by another physician. That was the ruling by a federal court in Maryland. A patient consulted her FP after noticing redness and soreness in her breast. He ordered a mammogram, which was negative, and then referred her to a surgeon. That doctor performed a fine-needle aspiration biopsy. A pathology report stated there was no evidence of cancer. The patient experienced further problems, and an excisional biopsy performed six months later revealed a rare form of cancer that subsequently caused the patient's death. A lawsuit against the surgeon and FP alleged that the excisional biopsy should have been performed after the other biopsy yielded negative results. The surgeon settled. The plaintiff alleged that the FP shouldn't have accepted the surgeon's opinion at face value without independently evaluating the pathology reports. The court ruled that a doctor should be entitled to rely on the opinion of a specialist unless he has specific evidence that it could be wrong. Otherwise, a specialist's opinions would be subject to second-guessing by referring doctors and "third-guessing" by juries, a result the court found "intolerable ... in any rational system of law." Lee Johnson has twenty-five years of experience in healthcare law, risk management, claims management, risk malpractice defense litigation and general counsel advice to hospitals and other health care providers. She lectures to physicians, hospitals, bar associations and medical societies; produces internet programs, self-study programs, videos and audiotapes on risk management and the defense of medical malpractice litigation; and writes numerous articles, pamphlets and books on risk management topics. She is a contributor on risk management for Medical Economics magazine. You can learn about her at website. Occ. Med. Central is growing every day. There is so much useful information on the web there is no way we can know nor find it all. That's where you come in. Don't feel limited by our current category list. If you find the item useful, then your colleagues will want to know about it. Click on the "Contribute" button to send us your contribution.  |