If you’re a physician and there’s a malpractice case against you, your insurance company may come to you and say they would like to settle the matter. Take a long look at that, because if they settle the case for any money whatsoever, whether it’s one penny or one million dollars, you are going to be reported to the National Practitioner Database and to the Department of Health of the State of New York. If you have several of these types of settlements against your name, people are going to start to look at you differently.
Also, the Department of Health will put on their website these settlements, and then the general public can see them. This may or may not make too much difference to you if you’re a pathologist or a radiologist, but if you are a surgeon or a plastic surgeon or someone who is doing operations that are not emergency operations, the general public is going to be looking at the website, checking you out. If they think you have too many claims against you, they obviously are going to choose a different physician. You have to make a choice, “Am I going to fight these malpractice claims or not?” Make a serious choice, and understand the ramifications of your choice.
This informational blog post was brought to you by Paul E. Walker, an experienced New York City OPMC & OPD Lawyer.
