Ohio lawmakers are considering a bill designed to make it harder to sue doctors who admit they’ve made a mistake.
As Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles reports, the legislation is on its way to passage.
When a patient dies or is seriously hurt, doctors sometimes talk to the patient’s family about the situation to explain what happened. But if those doctors admit guilt, that admission can be used in court later in a malpractice claim. Republican Representative Peter Stautberg says that’s a problem.
Stautberg “While a health care provider may offer words intended as an apology, the patient may hear an admission of fault in those very same words. If a lawsuit results, you have a he said, she said situation. In addition, although expressions of apology are nice, sometimes a family or patient has question or need for further answers from a medical provider. Largely, because of these situations, many hospitals and doctor groups do not permit their doctors or health care providers to talk with patients or families. The risk of having any discussions at all are simply too great. “
Stautberg says patients who merely want answers often feel the doctor is being adversarial by not providing detailed explanations of what happened. So Stauberg is sponsoring a bill that would prevent statements by doctors who take responsibility or admit mistakes in those discussions from being entered into court as evidence later. Democratic State Representative Mike Foley says this legislation is a bad idea.
Foley “So you are putting a doctor in a position of basically acting unethically, an attorney who is representing that doctor in potential conflict of asking a witness to say something they know is not true. And it seems to me that this is going way overboard in terms of trying to protect doctors at the expense of folks who have had harm in a medical malpractice case.”
This bill has already passed the Ohio House and is on its way through the Senate where it is expected to pass during the next couple of weeks. At least a half dozen other states have a similar law on the books.
