Alarming Number of Patients Think About Killing Their Doctors

While tales of patients murdering their medical care providers are very real and very tragic, they’re also rare. But a disturbing new study indicates that thoughts of killing doctors occur more frequently than we might think, particularly among patients who are in pain, undergoing physical rehabilitation, or seeking compensation for a disability. New Scientist  reports that psychiatrist David Fishbain and his colleagues at the University of Miami, Florida, surveyed around 800 physical rehabilitation patients and found that just over 1 in 20, or around 5 percent, admitted that they entertained thoughts of murdering their physician. In a control group of people not in treatment for any condition, around 2 percent reported having felt the desire to kill their doctor in the past. Fishbain speculates that these urges are related to distrust of physicians, particularly related to disability compensation cases—if a doctor won’t support the patient’s claim, the latter often feels betrayed and angry. Recently, doctors have started apologizing to patients for mistakes in order to curb malpractice lawsuits—an approach that appears to be working. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to start having similar sit-downs with patients litigating over disability.

Please click on the link below to read the Discover.com article:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/21/alarming-number-of-patients-think-about-killing-their-doctors/

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Doctors Can Help Lower Hospital Costs

Giving doctors cash rewards to reduce hospital spending helps control costs without compromising quality or patients’ access to care, according to a five-year study that included more than 220,000 patients. The study compared six cardiac catheterization labs that implemented this type of “gainsharing” program to 123 non-gainsharing labs. The researchers, from Arizona State University, found that gainsharing reduced hospital costs by 7.4 percent, or $315 per patient. That means that nationwide use of gainsharing could slash hospital costs for coronary stent patients by about $195 million a year, according to the researchers. Most of the savings from the gainsharing programs in the study were the result of lower prices for coronary stents. The gainsharing programs didn’t lead to any changes in patient referral patterns and didn’t increase the overall risk of in-lab complications. In fact, the gainsharing programs were associated with significant decreases in three specific types of complications, the researchers said. “We found no evidence that gainsharing prompted physicians to avoid patients with existing health problems or pick the healthiest patients,” study author Jonathon Ketcham, an assistant professor at the university’s School of Health Management and Policy, said in prepared statement. Further research into gainsharing’s effects on other health care quality measures and how it influences doctors’ decisions would be valuable, he added.

Please click on the link below to read the Statesman.com article:

http://www.statesman.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/cost/615404.html

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.