What Happens To Doctors Guilty Of Malpractice?
Have you thought about, “what happens to doctors guilty of malpractice and negligence?” We’ll explore what happens to doctors guilty of medical malpractice and negligence.
Learn More:
What Constitutes A Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?
Is A Wrong Diagnosis Malpractice?
Is Medical Malpractice Difficult To Prove?
Video Transcript
Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:23 Can A Doctor Guilty of Malpractice Still Practice Medicine?
1:05 Medical Malpractice Insurance
1:52 What Happens To A Doctor Guilty of Malpractice Medical Licenses?
The question is, what happens to a doctor that is found liable for medical malpractice? Well, there’s a couple of things that happen and some things do not happen.
0:23 Can A Doctor Guilty of Malpractice Still Practice Medicine?
First and foremost, he or she continues to practice medicine. Just because he’s found civilly liable in a medical malpractice case, it has no effect on his license or ability in that state to continue practicing medicine.
If that’s the result you’re looking for, it’s not going to happen from a medical malpractice litigation.
What happens to the doctor is that almost every doctor has malpractice insurance and if there’s a verdict against him or her or a settlement, that insurance that he has purchased pays for the damages that are then paid to the injured party.
1:05 Medical Malpractice Insurance
If he does settle a case or a verdict is entered against him, the law requires that he be reported to a federal national data bank, which can be accessed only by specific entities, and not by the lay public.
Hospitals that want to hire him/her in another state, can access that. That’s rarely a reason not to grant them privileges. There may be some local publicity if it’s a big enough case. But frankly, that’s unusual too.
1:52 What Happens To A Doctor Guilty of Malpractice Medical Licenses?
The reality is if there have been enough cases against him that resulted in settlements and/or verdicts, then he will be reported to the state licensing bodies. But unfortunately, in every state, there’s not enough of those investigators to go around. Usually, it takes many, many cases piled against him with adverse results and for victory settlements for them to even begin to investigate the competence of that doctor.
There’s very little oversight through this portion of the system. Nothing really of significance will impair his or her ability to practice medicine unless he’s one of or she’s one of those very, very frequent flyers who cause untold damages to people.
Do you have a question regarding those consequences? Feel free to contact us.
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