To Be Sued Less, Doctors Should Consider to Talking to Patients More | New York Times | June 1, 2015
To understand why patients file claims(malpractice), we have to talk to them. Many researchers have. A study in 1992 found that about a quarter of mothers who had sued physicians because of deaths or permanent injuries in their newborn infants “needed money.” But there were answers given more frequently that had nothing to do with remuneration. A third of respondents said that their doctor would not talk openly to them, half said their doctor had tried to mislead them, and 70 percent said that they were not warned about long-term neurodevelopmental problems in their children.
Another study, published two years later, looked at the relationship between physicians’ history of malpractice suits and their patients’ satisfaction. Patients seeing doctors who were sued in the past were significantly more likely to report that their doctor rushed them, did not explain reasons for tests or ignored them. Doctors sued most often were complained about by patients twice as much as those who were not, and poor communication was the most common complaint.
Decades-old studies have shown that primary care physicians sued less often are those more likely to spend time educating patients about their care, more likely to use humor and laugh with their patients and more likely to try to get their patients to talk and express their opinions. It seems that more likable physicians are less likely to have claims filed against them.
There was one thing they all agreed on, though. About two-thirds of both groups, doctors and patients, thought that improved communication could reduce future malpractice litigation.
