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Abugadu posted:Doctors get all kinds of preachy when you admit any sort of substance abuse to them, it gets annoying. Next time, ask them about this to change the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigative_judgment
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Aug 20, 2010 02:07
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Lykourgos posted:okay, but don't PDs get government health care or something? we get total coverage for a few dollars a month. Yeah, but he doesn't.
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Aug 20, 2010 02:10
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At a glance, seventh-day adventism looks like seventh day autism
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Aug 20, 2010 02:12
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billion dollar bitch posted:Okay I'm one and seven for callbacks/rejections. I don't think I've ever been more depressed. 20 interviews outstanding.
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Aug 20, 2010 03:34
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Ersatz posted:It's still early for DC. I managed four call-backs from OCI in 2008, but three of those weren't arranged until mid-September. Do you have any idea on the turnaround for government callbacks in DC looks like?
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Aug 20, 2010 03:38
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JudicialRestraints posted:Do you have any idea on the turnaround for government callbacks in DC looks like?
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Aug 20, 2010 04:17
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JudicialRestraints posted:Do you have any idea on the turnaround for government callbacks in DC looks like? Our DC OCI isn't even until September 13.
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Aug 20, 2010 07:27
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Even when you're pretty straightforward with your doctor because you know exactly why your liver is poo poo, he'll still order a bunch of bullshit because that's how they roll. Would be nice to be like my clients when I get the bill and just say "I don't think you needed to do this. I'm not paying." e: iPhone typing Phil Moscowitz fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Aug 20, 2010 |
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Aug 20, 2010 13:35
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I mean I know that's what insurance companies do to them but if one of my clients stiffs me on a $200 bill I don't put collection agencies on them.
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Aug 20, 2010 13:58
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Even when you're pretty straightforward with your doctor because you know exactly why your liver is poo poo, he'll still order a bunch of bullshit because that's how they roll. Would be nice to be like my clients when I get the bill and just say "I don't think you needed to do this. I'm not paying." The likelihood of getting hit with a medical malpractice suit for not responding in every possible way according to patient input, even if you supposedly know in your gut that the patient is a liar/scoundrel/idiot is a lot higher than the likelihood of getting hit with a legal malpractice suit for not researching and putting forth every single potential argument you could theoretically make. Plus, inconsistencies in billing practice are seen by insurance companies as signals of potential fraud and they do lovely things like auditing medical bills from a 2-5 year period so they can find any possible excuse to get reimbursement from the doctor.
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Aug 20, 2010 15:27
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Insurance companies are the loving scum of the earth. In a case, I had an excess liability carrier ready to throw down three million. The loving underlying insurance company refused to hit their limits of $1m; they had only come with authorization to settle for $500,000. loving sons of bitches.
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Aug 20, 2010 15:32
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CaptainScraps posted:Insurance companies are the loving scum of the earth. Insurance-related litigation is the biggest trap on earth for an attorney. You get a steady stream of business, but the billing rates are low and your bills are put under enormous amounts of scrutiny. You also run into all kinds of unnecessary crap regarding hardline stancess you must take for routine discovery issues and where to get necessary information and documents from inside their Byzantine bureaucracies. It's a bit of career killer too, but I don't want to get into that.
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Aug 20, 2010 15:44
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Even when you're pretty straightforward with your doctor because you know exactly why your liver is poo poo, he'll still order a bunch of bullshit because that's how they roll. Would be nice to be like my clients when I get the bill and just say "I don't think you needed to do this. I'm not paying." This didn't happen to me. He was like, "hey your liver enzymes are a bit hosed up, why don't you try taking a week off from drinking and get it re-tested."
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Aug 20, 2010 15:45
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Even when you're pretty straightforward with your doctor because you know exactly why your liver is poo poo, he'll still order a bunch of bullshit because that's how they roll. Would be nice to be like my clients when I get the bill and just say "I don't think you needed to do this. I'm not paying." Perhaps I overstated it. I'm not exactly lying to my doctor about drinking. I answer the questions truthfully, but don't exactly give the whole story. Example - Do you drink Alcohol? Yes. How often? Oh, whenever I get the feeling, you know.... (I get that feeling a lot...) How many drinks do you have when you drink? 2 -3 drinks. (Tumblers full of whiskey with no mixers....) TyChan posted:The likelihood of getting hit with a medical malpractice suit for not responding in every possible way according to patient input, even if you supposedly know in your gut that the patient is a liar/scoundrel/idiot is a lot higher than the likelihood of getting hit with a legal malpractice suit for not researching and putting forth every single potential argument you could theoretically make. Bullshit. I have done plaintiff's med mal on and off for my whole career and we take less than 1 in 30 potential cases. Everyone else in this community is similarly as selective. Don't believe the hype. CaptainScraps posted:Insurance companies are the loving scum of the earth. So settle with the excess carrier, giving them credit for the full $1 million of underyling limits. Then maintain the action with the primary carrier.
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Aug 20, 2010 15:48
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TyChan posted:Insurance-related litigation is the biggest trap on earth for an attorney. You get a steady stream of business, but the billing rates are low and your bills are put under enormous amounts of scrutiny. You also run into all kinds of unnecessary crap regarding hardline stancess you must take for routine discovery issues and where to get necessary information and documents from inside their Byzantine bureaucracies. The attorneys who do it don't appear to be the greatest attorneys ever, either. Solomon Grundy posted:So settle with the excess carrier, giving them credit for the full $1 million of underyling limits. Then maintain the action with the primary carrier. That's what I thought but I'm just the clerk. 
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Aug 20, 2010 16:13
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Solomon Grundy posted:Bullshit. I have done plaintiff's med mal on and off for my whole career and we take less than 1 in 30 potential cases. Everyone else in this community is similarly as selective. Don't believe the hype. If something goes wrong, I don't think it's going to come across well to a jury or a judge when the doctor says "I didn't bother believing what the patient was saying to me because I know deep down inside, without any other proof than my gut, that the guy was an alcoholic." Also, no potential client is going to go to your firm or another firm and say "hey, I'm an alcoholic, but I still want to sue my doctor for the liver problems he failed to convince me to prevent." What you're going to get is a case where the patient says, "well I told my doctor I wasn't drinking anymore, but he still failed to do all those tests you asked me about __ years later." That prospect looks a lot more attractive. What lawyers have been told to do by lawyers and malpractice insurance companies for the past several decades is to be decently thorough in a standardized way so they can cover their rear end. That way, they can go "after he told me ______, I did the recommended steps and it still did not come up with anything." You don't get that cover by deciding you're King Solomon and you really, really know what is going on in the patient's head. "The Community" might feel differently, but this is what doctors have to deal with all the time. Plus, don't forget about the hack lawyers outside of the established community who are trying to suck up every case they can get in order to shake down any deep pocket they can find. More established lawyers like you might not do that because you do not have the motivation, but it happens. CaptainScraps posted:The attorneys who do it don't appear to be the greatest attorneys ever, either. That's what you get when the client always chooses the lowest bidder. If an insurer has the choice between a Yale law graduate with clerking experience and 10 years of solid litigation experience billing at $200 an hour and a TTT graduate with 5 years of shaky experience billing at $180, they will go for the guy billing at $180 every time. Insurers figure that they will probably settle out of almost every case anyway, so unless the cheaper attorney is an imcompetent menace to the profession, they will just try to save as much money as possible. If nothing else, you can count on the opportunity and economic costs of continuing litigation on both opposing counsel and clients to drive them down to a more palatable demand. Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Aug 20, 2010 |
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Aug 20, 2010 16:18
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Boo hoo, I'm a poor surgeon who makes $400,000 a year and the only protection I have against malpractice suits is a ridiculously defensible standard of care, mandatory review procedures before any suit can be filed where other doctors decide if I met that standard of care, caps on damages... Also, not defending insurance defense cause it sucks, but there are many excellent lawyers who handle that type of work because it's steady and honestly, not all that stressful.
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Aug 20, 2010 16:21
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I think you're unfairly characterizing the point I am trying to make, which is that doctors do not order tests solely out of a desire for more revenue. There is a lot of rear end-covering you need to do. Depending on the specialty you are in, the only way to keep your malpractice insurance affordable is to do everything you can to avoid getting sued. A lot of physicians have an annoyingly antagonistic attitudes towards attorneys, but attorneys who think that doctors are just rolling in their money bins like Scrooge McDuck are equally full of crap. Phil Moscowitz posted:Also, not defending insurance defense cause it sucks, but there are many excellent lawyers who handle that type of work because it's steady and honestly, not all that stressful. I wish I could say the same about my insurance defense job. Then again, I seem to have a knack for working on matters with histrionic opposing counsel and recalictrant clients using our cases as ammunition for office politics. I've had Cravath and Simpson Thatcher attorneys tell me "your cases always sound like total shitshows." Eric Cantonese fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Aug 20, 2010 |
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Aug 20, 2010 16:25
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Why can't 1Ls just volunteer for a summer job?
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Aug 20, 2010 16:40
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Gadamer posted:Why can't 1Ls just volunteer for a summer job? What do you mean?
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Aug 20, 2010 16:44
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TyChan posted:What do you mean? As a 1L, you need experience. Is it difficult to find a place where you intern/volunteer?
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Aug 20, 2010 16:44
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Gadamer posted:As a 1L, you need experience. Is it difficult to find a place where you intern/volunteer? Well, the challenge is to find a place where you can volunteer in a way that makes you ultimately more employable as a lawyer. There are all kinds of unpaid internships in the legal field, but since 1L summer jobs are generally unpaid, you're basically competing against the vast majority of 1Ls (and sometimes 2Ls) for those positions. It's like competing for a real job, but the prize isn't income.
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Aug 20, 2010 16:48
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Neon Belly fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Aug 1, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2010 16:51
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TyChan posted:I think you're unfairly characterizing the point I am trying to make, which is that doctors do not order tests solely out of a desire for more revenue. There is a lot of rear end-covering you need to do. Well in a world that's "fee for service" Docs sure do perform a lot of services. Edit: NYTimes just did an article on the rise of unnecessary c-sections. Roger_Mudd fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Aug 20, 2010 |
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Aug 20, 2010 17:00
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Gadamer posted:As a 1L, you need experience. Is it difficult to find a place where you intern/volunteer? Yes. Hordes of 1Ls will throw themselves at and grovel for every position just to have experience.
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Aug 20, 2010 17:00
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Seeing the protections in place against malpractice plaintiffs, it seems to me that the "I'm just being careful" excuse is a secure cover for over testing. And the comparison to legal matters is off because while most savvy businesses and even individuals can look at a proposed course of action in litigation and make an educated gamble whether to have their lawyer cover all bases, the same can't be said about medicine. Even very intelligent people can't understand medical procedures, and even if they could, when the risk is health-related you get all kinds of psychological factors that aren't present in strictly monetary decisions.
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Aug 20, 2010 17:24
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Seeing the protections in place against malpractice plaintiffs, it seems to me that the "I'm just being careful" excuse is a secure cover for over testing. Doctors aren't lawyers, so assuming they have detailed knowledge of the protections they have would be foolish.
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Aug 20, 2010 17:28
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Roger_Mudd posted:Well in a world that's "fee for service" Docs sure do perform a lot of services. Well, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists OB-GYNS revised practice guidelines after recent studies showed that vaginal delivery after cesarian births was a healthier option than originally thought. Also, the NY Times has a rather interesting point to make about the prior guidelines quote:Until the 1970s, the rule was “once a Caesarean, always a Caesarean,” largely because of worries about rupture. But medical opinion shifted, and an expert panel convened by the National Institutes of Health in 1980 found that vaginal birth after Caesarean was safe for many women. So a specialty suffering from high rates of malpractice lawsuits and high prices for malpractice insurance got cagey due to potential legal costs arising from exactly what they were fearing when they were doing unnecessary Cesarians. Go figure.
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Aug 20, 2010 17:30
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Also the other thing you've got with medical malpractice cases is someone who had something terrible happen to them, and they're looking for someone to blame - they don't really want to believe they're crippled for life because, well, poo poo happens. They're very motivated but not overly rational patients, and it's why I think medical malpractice suits that go to trial split ~ 66/33 in favor of the defendant (the normal split is 50/50 because the lawyers settle cases that aren't tossups). A doctor doesn't just want to not lose a malpractice suit, they don't want to be sued to begin with. A lawsuit is a pain in the rear end and needless stress.
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Aug 20, 2010 17:38
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Tetrix posted:Our DC OCI isn't even until September 13. That's because DC doesn't want us.
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Aug 20, 2010 19:17
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Gadamer posted:As a 1L, you need experience. Is it difficult to find a place where you intern/volunteer? My office is in commuting distance of, poo poo, like 6 law schools. Yet, we and the district attorney's office had free spots for 1L volunteers this summer that were not filled. Seriously, apply to every city and county attorney's, district attorney, public defender within a 1.5 hr drive. Someone wants your slave labor.
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Aug 20, 2010 19:44
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nm posted:A lot of people need to work harder at finding these positions. Those are 1Ls. They think public interest is beneath them. The "OMG, this might not be as great as advertised" panic doesn't start until 3 months after the fact.
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Aug 20, 2010 20:08
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Another mailed rejection today. Our list of allies grows thin.
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Aug 20, 2010 20:52
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evilweasel posted:Also the other thing you've got with medical malpractice cases is someone who had something terrible happen to them, and they're looking for someone to blame - they don't really want to believe they're crippled for life because, well, poo poo happens. They're very motivated but not overly rational patients, and it's why I think medical malpractice suits that go to trial split ~ 66/33 in favor of the defendant (the normal split is 50/50 because the lawyers settle cases that aren't tossups). A doctor doesn't just want to not lose a malpractice suit, they don't want to be sued to begin with. A lawsuit is a pain in the rear end and needless stress. More like 80% - 20% in favor of the doctors. Med mal cases are so, so difficult to win. Insurers know it, and don't pay. The only time you get full settlement value is day of trial or mid-trial (or sometimes post trial, pre-verdict), after you have already spent all of the money for experts, etc. Despite Tychan's suggestion, at least in this area, there is no horde of starving lawyers ready to take meritless med mal cases. Nobody pays on those, and they are very expensive to bring. If you take a marginal med mal case, you'll just end up starvinger. The perception of abusive med mal lawsuits is, by and large, a hoax. Doctors have lots of money and organization and the sympathy of the public, and have shaped public perception. Nobody is perfect, and every doctor is going to make mistakes. Every doctor is going to make dozens and dozens of mistakes over a career. And every doctor gets sued once or twice over a career (or seven or eight times if the doc is really bad). Nobody wants to get sued. Nobody wants to be told they did a lovely job. So like everyone else who gets sued, the doctors get outraged when it happens. They bitch and bitch at cocktail parties, and to the AMA and other specialty organization, who bitch and bitch at politicians. They have the money and the power to bitch really loud. The insurers use this bitching as cover to push politicians for tort reform, which, while nominally directed at "frivolous" cases, cut off insurers' liability for the most catastrophic and egregious cases. The insurers laugh all of the way to the bank, having collected years of premiums for risk they will never have to pay on. Do the insurance rates go down? Never. http://www.protectconsumerjustice.org/insurance-companies-reap-benefits-of-medical-negligence-caps.html And often, the "tort reform" measures have the opposite of the intended effect- requiring lawyers to sue more doctors than they want. For example, one of the tort reform provisions in my state allows a defendant to request the jury to allocate liability to any entity that the defendant blames at trial for the plaintiff's loss. If the jury allocates loss to an entity that has not been sued, that portion of the loss is uncollectable. So what does a rational lawyer do? Sue everyone. Otherwise, you are committing malpractice. Various studies have estimated 100,000 - 225,000 deaths caused by medical errors per year nationwide. http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/mistakes/common.htm If you think there are that many med mal lawsuits filed per year, you are nuts. The vast majority of potential medical malpractice cases never get pursued. http://www.medicalmalpractice.com/National-Medical-Malpractice-Facts.cfm Don't believe the hype.
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Aug 20, 2010 23:43
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billion dollar bitch posted:Another mailed rejection today. Our list of allies grows thin. Hey, be happy they cared enough to mail you a rejection, scum.
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Aug 20, 2010 23:58
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I got a job doing municipal defense for insurers at $15 an hour. My unpaid 1L job directly turned into it and I'm in a position to oppose the biglaw firms that turned me down for OCI. I also get to file motions in my boxers. gently caress yeah.
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Aug 21, 2010 00:44
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7StoryFall posted:That's because DC doesn't want us. gently caress that HERE I COME
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Aug 21, 2010 01:43
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Hrmm, looks like I'll be out of the job relatively soon. I just wish the OP had more information about the terrible jobs situation currently. Then I could print it off and hand it to my cohorts while I laugh and laugh as the tears roll silently down my cheek. I've been in the alcohol-laced abyss of perpetual unemployment before and I'm not exactly looking forward to returning. For a few months, though, I felt like a real lawyer, a neophyte, scrubby lawyer to be sure but a lawyer nonetheless. Putting on a jury trial was probably the greatest thing ever. For a few weeks I thought of nothing but this trial as I gathered my witnesses, got all the questions lined up, and organized my exhibits. I successfully went through all the witnesses and got all of the evidence I needed admitted, in. No mistrial! I was so proud. I lost. Afterwards, I went through a decompression phase where I realized there was a world out there with things happening. It was better than any roller-coaster ride, drunk, or high in the world and I got paid to do it. Goddrat. Will I die alone? Almost certainly. Will I get another job? Doubtful. 
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Aug 21, 2010 02:40
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Gotta go with Solomon Grundy on this; my dad's practice includes plaintiff's med/mal and despite the huge number of actual malpractice incidents there are in his area, that particular practice area has basically dried up for him. And yet, the doctors still bitch about malpractice insurance costs (as the roll out in their Ferrari off to their new $5 million house on Palm Beach Island.)
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Aug 21, 2010 04:01
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JudicialRestraints posted:I got a job doing municipal defense for insurers at $15 an hour. My unpaid 1L job directly turned into it and I'm in a position to oppose the biglaw firms that turned me down for OCI. Congratulations, expect a bittersweet sensation if you prevail over some firm lawyer on something...first the sweetness of victory, then the bitterness of realizing what he got paid to lose versus what you got paid to win.
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Aug 21, 2010 04:37
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