Unfortunately, your patient’s recovery journey may not be going exactly as how they may have wished. With this, they may take their frustrations out on you, accusing you of offering an improper degree of care. While you may believe this blame to be baseless and unfounded, it may still get the attention of the New York Department of State’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) or Office of Professional Discipline (OPD). And if their complaint gets to this point, you must do everything in your power to prove its illegitimacy. For this, please read on to discover what to do if your patient lies about your committing medical misconduct and how one of the seasoned OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers at Walker Medical Law can help with your supporting argument.
What should I do if a patient lies about my misconduct?
First of all, it is understandable if you feel uncomfortable with accusing your patient of lying. But at the same time, you must protect yourself from undue punishment by the OPMC or OPD. So, as a compromise, you may lead your argument by stating that your patient simply misunderstood the circumstances surrounding the incident at hand.
For example, you may argue that your patient did not diligently follow the treatment plan or terms of the pain management plan that you prescribed to them. That is, they may have continually canceled follow-up appointments with you or drastically stopped taking their medication without your explicit direction.
With this, your patient should have reasonably known, yet still failed to comprehend, that these actions would come with dire consequences to the detriment of their health. Therefore, you did not commit medical misconduct because you never gave up trying to provide your patient with the utmost healthcare. Rather, your patient incurred their heightened illness, injury, and/or damages as a direct result of their own, voluntary actions.
What evidence do I need to support my misconduct defense?
It is very easy for your hearing in front of the OPMC or OPD Board to turn into a “he said, she said” argument. To avoid a weak defense like this, you must come forward with an abundance of tangible evidence.
Referring back to the example mentioned above, you should provide copies of all your patient’s medical records on file. This should especially include copies of their prescriptions for medications, consultations with specialists, therapy sessions with specialists, and more. With this, your patient never picking up their prescription refills may be confirmed by a pharmacist’s testimony. Similarly, your patient never scheduling a specialty appointment may be confirmed by a referred specialist’s testimony. Also, you should bring a log of all your patient’s missed, canceled, or rescheduled appointments with your office.
Going about your OPMC or OPD hearing should not be done without the wise legal counsel of one of the competent OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers. So please call to schedule your initial consultation with us at Walker Medical Law today.
