Beware Of Hospitalists! Just recently having been an inpatient at Lakeland Regional Hosp, Im horrified at the treatment I received at the hands of the hospitalist... due to the nature of the many errors made, Ive had to retain an attorney to possibly bring a case against these hospitalist for malpractice so I cannot go into the details until a resolution of some sort has been found and rectified. With that said, I would like to say more about what a hospitalist is and just how dangerous they are! Hospitalists are physicians whose primary professional focus is the general medical care of hospitalized patients. Their activities include patient care, teaching, research, and leadership related to Hospital Medicine. This sounds rather benign, like they are simply educated candy stripers. However, they are actually replicant versions of your kind, caring personal physicians, and their inaccessibility, unaccountability and basic lack of commitment to the patient can have deadly consequences. Most people in America have their own trusted physicians, who know their medical history intimately. In the past, when a patient entered the hospital his own personal doctors were notified and consulted, and this was followed by subsequent visits. The new method of operation, designed to control hospital costs, is to assign a patient a “hospitalist” — a physician who knows nothing about the patient’s medical history and is relying on a sick patient, or a frazzled family member, to fill in pertinent gaps in knowledge. The patient is being denied his personal doctor who will not only properly care for him but care about him. The patient is left with an unattached, surreptitious hospitalist who is a “shift worker.” Once the hospitalist leaves the hospital, he washes his hands of the patient, leaving the patient to the next hospitalist on duty. Trying to connect with these revolving-door hospitalists is a nightmare and it leaves a critical void in not only the patient’s care, but in the family’s ability to know when, why and how the patient is being treated and how the patient is faring. These hospitalists make decisions — prescribing new medicines or altering existing medicines — based on a sketchy history of the patients without consulting their primary physicians. They often do this in a precarious and arrogant manner — the hospitalist God complex. The number one reason they get sued? Although hospitalists provide important benefits, their involvement disrupts the continuity of care provided by the patients primary care physicians, resulting in potential adverse effects for both patients and doctors. The well-intentioned efforts of many primary care physicians to make themselves more available to their outpatients and provide their inpatients with the benefit of doctors with expertise in hospital medicine may have reduced their own value in the eyes of their patients and, in some instances, decreased their job satisfaction. According to an article in American Medical News, malpractice cases against hospitalists are rising. Because hospitalists are a relatively new breed, data is limited, but trends suggest more patients are bringing suits against hospital doctors. And as more and more doctors opt to become hospitalists, malpractice suits could skyrocket. The most common problem? In many cases, employing hospitalists actually protects hospitals. Having dedicated doctors on staff means physicians are more accessible, which helps keep problems surrounding patient treatment to a minimum. However, mistakes still happen – and they can prove costly. Several recent studies have shown that diagnosis errors are the No. 1 liability issue for hospitalists, with the majority of malpractice claims relating to this problem alone! Liability insurers are now separating the policies of medical professionals who practice in hospitals from those of general internists. In the past, hospitalists were given the same rate as primary care physicians. But this could soon change because the number of lawsuits against hospitalists is on the rise. While hospitalists and primary care physicians both practice medicine, their environments and daily pressures are vastly different. The patients of hospitalists are usually sicker than those of general internists. In addition, hospitalists aren’t able to develop longstanding relationships with these ailing individuals. So they don’t have detailed background information or knowledge of how the hospital patients assigned to them communicate. Furthermore, many hospitalists have more patients than they can safely handle at any given time. A Johns Hopkins study in January revealed some troubling statistics. According to its survey, 40 percent of participating doctors reported an excessive number of patients at least once a month. More than 36 percent of doctors said this happened to them on a weekly basis. Because of this structure, the study found that many hospitalists are unable to devote the necessary attention to each patient. Other oversights follow, such as delayed admissions and discharges, ordering of needless tests and worsened quality of care. All things considered, though, it seems to me that the major benefit of having a hospitalist care for a hospitalized patient accrues mainly to the primary care physician, who no longer has to suffer the inconvenience and wear and tear of visiting the hospital to see his or her patients, nor suffer the inadequate reimbursement that insurance companies provide for such visits. It’s the patient who gets the short end of the stick in terms of continuity of care, in my opinion. Although she is seen by hospitalists while in the hospital, she is not necessarily seen by the same one during the course of her stay, potentially leading to communication disconnections among providers and disruptions in continuity of care. Even if the patient is seen by the same hospitalist throughout her hospitalization, she does not receive the benefit of being seen by a physician—namely, her primary care physician—who has an in-depth understanding of her, her prior history, and her health concerns. Though there are certainly well-intentioned hospitalists, they are nevertheless an arm of Obama“care” and a sign of things to come — impersonal disregard and haphazard protocol. Patients need to be vigilantly aware of the consequences of having a hospitalist — who is often cavalier, overwhelmed, and not personably accountable in any way, shape or form (the hospitalist will never see the patient again after the patient is discharged from the hospital). This impersonal way of practicing Obamacare has proven to be deadly! Something needs to be done about the communication between Hospitalists and PCPs. Hospitalists may save a lot of money, but they simply do not know the patient well enough to assume care from the patients PCP period. The next time you go to the hospital, beware and BYOMD!!!
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 02:58:10 +0000
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