Shuttling Patients Around: Profits Over Safety

When people seek professional medical treatment, they rightfully expect that their physician or the hospital they visit will provide them with the medical attention they require. It should go without saying that these locations will not place profits ahead of patient well-being. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and people are injured by medical negligence every day in ways connected to profit.

The medical profession is fraught with conflicts of interest, and there have been highly publicized examples of physicians taking kickbacks for prescribing certain drugs or ordering certain elective procedures. In addition, the current system through which health insurers pay doctors can incentivize physicians to withhold care or cut other corners when treating patients. For better or worse, the provision of medical care has a business side to it, and the temptations of quick and easy profits can prove to be too much for some people. Putting financial concerns ahead of patient care is unethical, and if it causes injury, may provide the basis for an Indiana medical malpractice lawsuit. If you believe you may have a medical malpractice claim, you should consult with an Indianapolis medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.

Pressure to Increase Medical Profits

For example, in one case two doctors files a lawsuit against a local hospital, alleging it was pressuring physicians to transfer patients between campuses in an effort to maximize profits, and that their resistance to the scheme ultimately resulted in their wrongful termination. Call the legal team of Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 for a free case review with our Indiana Wrongful Death Attorneys today.

The lawsuit maintains that the director of the emergency department pushed for physicians to transfer patients between facilities, and that both the director and the company that owned the hospital had ownership interests in the ambulance business that was used to shuttle the patients from campus to campus. As such, both the director and the emergency department director stood to benefit from additional patient transfers. In addition, doctors who authorized the most transfers were eligible for bonuses. The plaintiffs claim that the point of the scheme was to move patients from a more crowded campus to a less crowded campus in order to free up space for the hospital to perform more lucrative surgeries, not out of medical necessity.

Prioritizing Patient Need

Hospitals and physicians owe a duty of care to their patients and, when this duty is breached, a person may be able to recover in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Medical malpractice suits are necessary to hold doctors and hospitals accountable for injuries caused by professional negligence. All professionals are held to a high standard of care when operating in their professional capacities, and the recovery in these kinds of cases can be significant. In order to determine whether you have a claim, you should schedule a free consultation with an experienced Hammond medical malpractice attorney. Medical malpractice lawsuits raise highly complex legal issues that require experienced legal counsel, and it is important for anyone pursuing a claim against a medical professional to retain an attorney who understands how to effectively pursue such claims. Contact our Fort Wayne, IN medical malpractice lawyer today.