State Finds Bellingham, WA Doctor Breached Standard of Care
Dr. Craig K. Moore of Bellingham, Washington has had his doctor’s license put on oversight for two years after the Washington State Department of Health concluded that his care of a woman who was later diagnosed with rectal cancer did not meet the standard of care. Specifically, the Department of Health records show that the doctor failed to properly address the symptoms that the woman communicated with him.
Read MoreWho Pays for Medically Unnecessary Services for Injury Victims in WA State?
When a person is injured badly they typically seek medical treatment from a qualified medical care provider. Imagine if you are injured in an accident through no fault of your own and you seek and receive medical care but when you try to recover damages, the defendant’s attorney or insurance company claims that you received unreasonable or medically unnecessary services. What if they are right? Should the injured victim now be responsible to pay for that medical care even though it was not their fault that they were injured and then received unnecessary procedures/services? No they should not but who pays?
Read MoreUnnecessary Heart Procedures: Medical Malpractice
Along with any medical procedure or surgery comes risk to the patient; heart procedures are no different. In most cases cardiac procedures are performed for legitimate – often life saving – reasons but some doctors and hospitals have been accused of exposing heart patients to unnecessary heart procedures in order to pad their pockets with Medicare reimbursements. For perspective, angioplasties and related procedures are performed on 600,000 patients every year. About half of these patients are on Medicare. In 2011, angioplasties cost to the health care system an estimated $12 billion.
Read MoreFailure to Treat Heart Failure
February is American Heart Month. American Heart Month is a federally designated event meant to place focus on heart health to reduce heart disease, heart attacks and heart failure. While failure to treat heart failure may contribute to a small number of deaths from heart failure; any is too many.
Data from the CDC shows that about 5.7 million adults in the United States have heart failure. In 2009, one in nine deaths included heart failure as a contributing cause. About half of people who develop heart failure die within five years of diagnosis which makes treatment the difference between life and death.
Read MoreWhat is the Connection Between Shoveling Snow, Heart Attacks and Failure to Diagnose Cases?
In the Pacific Northwest we don’t usually get more than a few days with heavy snow on the ground which means that we are always out of practice for shoveling snow. When a person who has cardiovascular issues sets out to shovel snow they are in fact, risking a heart attack from the exertion. A study published in the journal Clinical Research in Cardiology identified 500 patients who checked into the hospital over two winters because of heart problems. Seven percent of those patients said that they were shoveling snow at the time the symptoms started. The people most vulnerable to a snow shoveling related heart attack were men, with an average age of 63, with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease.
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Read MoreTop Causes Of Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice is when a medical care provider – including a doctor, dentist, nurse, laboratory technician or a hospital/medical facility – fails to meet the “standard of care” that would have been met by other healthcare providers in similar circumstances. The failure to meet the “standard of care” must directly harm the patient in order for malpractice to have occurred. A medical malpractice claim is a claim that the healthcare provider acted negligently when providing care for the injured party.
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Read MoreWhen is a Medication Error Medical Malpractice?
Most patients trust that when they are given a prescription for pharmaceutical drugs that the medication will be safe to use and create the desired effect. Unfortunately, in some situations prescription drugs end up harming instead of helping the patient. When a person is harmed by the prescription, administration or dispensation of a prescription drug because of a medical professional’s negligence; the doctor, nurse or pharmacist may be held liable for damages caused by the medication error.
Read MoreFailure to Diagnose Heart Disease: Medical Malpractice
When a medical professional fails to recognize the signs and symptoms of heart disease, he or she may have committed medical malpractice in the form of “failure to diagnose.” A general practitioner is responsible to listen to a patient’s heartbeat, test blood pressure and identify family history of heart disease. In some cases, a general practitioner may refer a patient to a heart specialist or make their own diagnosis. The purpose of these steps is to use the warning signs of heart disease to make a diagnosis and start a treatment plan before a heart attack happens. It goes without saying then that failure to diagnose heart disease puts the patient at serious risk for a potentially life threatening heart attack.
Read MoreHeart Disease and Stroke Prevention Guidelines
Heart disease and strokes are the number one and number four leading causes of death in the United States. About one-third of American adults have elevated levels of bad cholesterol and nearly two-thirds have high blood pressure or pre-hypertension. Approximately 610,000 Americans endure a first stroke every year and another 525,000 have a first heart attack. To help reduce these statistics, new heart disease and stroke prevention guidelines were released by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology in 2013.
Read MoreHow to Use Cancer Screenings
Cancer takes the lives of too many Americans. Can anything be done to help prevent cancer deaths? Scientists continue to develop tests aimed at finding specific types of cancer before signs or symptoms present themselves. These tests could be part of a health screening regimen that your doctor may follow or recommend. The main goals of cancer screenings are to:
- Reduce or eliminate the number of people who die from cancer.
- Reduce the number of people who develop cancer in the first place.