Dear Imaging Center Insider,
You find something unusual on a patient's exam, and like you've been trained, you make your dictation and notify the referring physician through the usual channels, resting assured that your work is done.
Not so fast.
It's a much more litigious world than it used to be, according to Dr. Leonard Berlin, professor of radiology at Rush University Medical College in Chicago, and if radiologists don't push to get urgent, significant, or surprising findings into the right hands, they could find themselves in the midst of a malpractice nightmare.
Berlin gave RSNA meeting attendees a crash course on the reality of communication errors and malpractice suits, along with some ways to avoid them. Click here to read the story. As an Insider subscriber, you have access to the article well before the rest of our AuntMinnie.com members.
When you've finished, check out the rest of the articles in the Imaging Center Digital Community, many of which are also related to malpractice:
- Get the details on the $2.9 million Colombini MRI suit settlement.
- Read what the New York Times had to say about radiation therapy errors and their effects on patients.
- Discover why President Barack Obama's budget is pressing ahead on healthcare reform.
- Find out how a decision by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to approve payment for FDG-PET scans for colorectal cancer patients boosted use of the modality at one hospital.
As always, if you have a comment or report to share about any aspect of diagnostic imaging practice, management, administration, regulation, or financing, please contact me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
