085 - A Young Physician Gets Sued For a Patient He Never Saw - A Crazy Medical Story to Help You Decrease Your Stress

Have you ever imagined getting sued for a patient you never even saw?

In this episode of The Independent Physician's Blueprint, Coach JPMD shares his own shocking experience with a malpractice lawsuit that could happen to any physician. With medical practice burnout and corporate contracts putting doctors at risk, it’s crucial to know how to protect yourself and your career. Whether you're just finishing medical residency or managing a busy practice, this episode reveals insights that can shield you from the unexpected dangers lurking in your agreements.

You’ll learn how to avoid contracts that expose you to malpractice risks, the importance of legal protection when you're in a tough spot, and how to navigate a lawsuit while safeguarding your medical license and livelihood. This real-life story serves as a warning and a guide for every independent physician.

Curious to hear how Coach JPMD got out of this lawsuit? Tune in now and don’t forget to check out our fan-favorite episode 84 on direct primary care to learn more strategies for reducing stress and boosting income!

Discover how medical graduates, junior doctors, and young physicians can navigate residency training programs, surgical residency, and locum tenens to increase income, enjoy independent practice, decrease stress, achieve financial freedom, and retire early, while maintaining patient satisfaction and exploring physician side gigs to tackle medical school loans.

Transcript

Coach JPMD (00:00.61)
Welcome back to another episode where I help younger physicians decrease stress and increase income by transitioning from corporate to independent practices, even without any business experience. Welcome to another episode of the independent physicians blueprint with your host coach JP MD, also known as Jude A. Pierre MD, where we help physicians ditch corporate controls to reduce medical practice burnout and generate wealth beyond residency training. this episode today is about a

crazy story that happened to a physician. And at end of this episode, you're gonna, we're gonna share a couple of pointers that I think every physician should know. And we'll also share the name of the physician that was involved in this crazy medical story. But before we get into this episode, if you have not had a chance to listen to episode 84 about direct primary care practices and the membership model, I strongly suggest that you

Listen to that episode and digest everything that Christopher Habig shared with us. He had such a wealth of information and know, DPC practices I think is going to be the wave of the future. So take a listen to that episode. So this week, this story is about a doctor who got sued for a patient he never saw. And sick to the end, like I said, we'll share that who that doctor was. And you'll be surprised. Well, this doctor was an ER doctor in Miami.

And that ER was staffed with one doctor and a PA. During the day, the hospital had a contract to perform workman's comp through the emergency room. As a physician, the physicians in that emergency room were supposed to be overseeing a podiatry resident that was working in the workman's comp section of the.

of the hospital. When that doctor was hired, the doctor was told that all he had to do was sign off on the notes and review any cases that the podiatrist had and that was it. Well, that physician practiced for a couple of years and did what he was told, was signing off on charts and reviewing patients, seeing patients on a cursory basis and thought that that was the standard. Two years in the practice, he received a notice

Coach JPMD (02:24.92)
that he was getting sued. And the notice in the lawsuit was about a patient who had a wrist fracture that was undiagnosed and not cared for. So you might wonder why was a podiatry resident seeing a patient with a wrist fracture? Well, this was like I said, a workman's comp case in a workman's comp area. And that podiatrist apparently missed.

reading of the radiologist who read the fracture as a wrist fracture and the patient spent several weeks without anything being taken care of. So it was an unfortunate case and the case actually happened to me. So that was one of my two lawsuits in my career, in my 23 years of practicing medicine and this case was crazy because I never saw the patient. Now some may say well why did you sign off on the notes?

And that is a question that I still have till today because I probably should never sign a contract that stated that I would be seeing a podiatry resident that would be seeing workman's comp cases. that is one of the things that I had to learn the hard way. And what I felt at the time was that my ER contract actually put us at risk for this to happen.

So this case was very frustrating for me because I had not seen the patient. did sign off on the note. And so technically I was responsible for that patient's risk factor. And the radiology department actually submitted the report. And as you know, as a physician, know, if you're working in the hospital, if you don't review every single report, those reports get filed in the patient's chart. There's no paper chart that would come back to an ER physician.

for the most part, at least when I was working in the emergency room, that would allow us to review every single x -ray that came through. So that was something that I felt the hospital, or at least my contract, put me at risk for. So one thing I will tell you, there's two things I learned from this case. And I'll tell you what happened at the end also. So the first thing is, one, you should never sign a contract that...

Coach JPMD (04:44.536)
that allows you to, or that puts you at risk for a lawsuit or the care of a patient that you never saw. So you should see every single patient that you encounter. And if you're signing off on charts and you have not seen the patients, I would run away from that job. Number two, what I did was after I got the lawsuit notice, I actually threatened, and I'm gonna say threatened because that's what I did.

to hire my own attorney to protect me against my employer who I felt put me in a bad position. And that's something that I think every physician should understand that they have the right to do. I didn't understand that until it happened to me, but I felt as though.

I was put at risk. So I was actually ready to hire an attorney on top of an attorney to help protect me and protect my license, especially because it was very, I was very new in my career. I was a younger physician, not really understanding the ins and outs of what I was doing and signing these contracts. So, so number one, definitely don't sign a contract that allows you to see patients or not see patients and, you know, bill for or supervise.

And number two, if you're in a situation where you feel that you're put at risk, then hire an attorney to protect you. And I know it may cost you a little bit more money, but in the end, that act of me even thinking about doing that, I think helped put me in a very good position with my company. the lawsuit was actually settled and I was removed from the liability of that lawsuit. I believe my former employer.

absorb that liability and so there was nothing no ding on my license and no ding on my yeah no ding on my license I guess so it was it was a

Coach JPMD (06:40.16)
Unfortunate case that had an unfortunate outcome, but the outcome was good for me in terms of lawsuits. And I know that there are physicians out there that are afraid of lawsuits and afraid of things happening, but I was once told by a physician that expect to get sued as a physician and just protect yourself, protect your assets.

And we'll just definitely have some, some guests that can show you or at least demonstrate how you can protect your assets and protect yourself from for lawsuits as a physician. So that's my crazy medical story about me getting sued.

one or two times, maybe I'll share the other story another another crazy medical story because that was also another crazy story. But we're all good. I'm so practicing. I still think I'm doing okay in medicine. So it's not the end of the world if you do get sued. There's always a way out and just remember that you have to protect yourself and make sure that you don't sign contracts that you shouldn't sign. Thank you for listening to these crazy medical stories.

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