There may be a case where your patient may incur further injuries or illnesses, far worse than what they originally sought treatment for, due to circumstances beyond your reasonable control. However, your patient may misread the situation and thereby fall under the assumption that it is indeed your fault. With this, they may take the matter to the New York State Department of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) or Office of Professional Discipline (OPD). So, if you find yourself in front of the OPMC/OPD Board, you must do everything possible to fight off these allegations. Continue reading to learn how to defend against medical misconduct claims and how one of the experienced OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers at Walker Medical Law can stand by your side and form a united front.
How can I defend against medical misconduct allegations?
Essentially, you should build your defense around the exact allegations that the patient is throwing your way.
For example, your patient may claim general negligence. That is, they may claim that you generally failed to meet the standard of care established by your peers in the New York State professional medical community. Therefore, they may claim that their incurred injuries or illnesses were correlated to such negligence.
Here, you may respond with proof that your care was in line with the standard of care, and rather you made no medical errors while treating the patient. Such proof may include the descriptive medical chart you kept of your patient, copies of the prescriptions you administered to your patient, lists of the frequent appointments and check-ins you scheduled with your patient, and more.
Or, you may counter your patient’s general negligence claim by arguing that they contributed to their incurred injuries or illnesses. For example, you may assert that this all would have been avoided if they did not go against your prescribed treatment plan, if they did not frequently forget to take your prescribed medications, if they did not frequently forget to attend your scheduled appointments, and more.
What happens if I cannot adequately defend against these allegations?
You must take any medical misconduct allegation placed against you seriously by building an adequate defense strategy. This is because any charges sustained in a settlement or after a hearing may be reflected on your Physician Profile on the Department of Health’s website. What’s worse, the OPMC/OPD may inflict penalties as minor as an administrative warning but as extreme as a permanent revocation of your medical license, among other things.
In conclusion, there is no time like the present to work on your defense strategy. So, at your earliest possible convenience, please get in touch with one of the skilled OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers at Walker Medical Law.
