My wife has been going to a podiatrist for several years because of pain in her foot. He was never able to diagnose the problem, and usually just injceted her with cortisone.
On this last visit, he recommended a pair of $150 tennis shoes (which did nothing) and a pair of custom-made orthodics. Becasue he assured us that the orthodics would be covered by insurance, we went ahead with the $300 purchase.
The orthodics didn’t work, so she (finally) decided to see another Dr. It turns out that the first Dr.'s diagnosis was incorrect, and the orthodics (which btw, insurance does not cover…my fault for not checking personally) could be doing more damage than good.
Now, I really don’t want to pay for these orthodics. Do I have any recourse seeing as how the initial Dr. gave an incorrect diagnosis and recommended a remedy that is innefective (and possibly harmful) for the treatment of my wife’s foot?
They were purchased on the recommendation of a Dr who gave an incorrect diagnosis. It would be like bring your car into the shop, having the technician say you needed new tires, and then finding out that your tires were fine but you actually needed new brakes.
I would hope that the Dr. would assume some liability…but maybe that is just a pipe dream.
If you can conclusively prove that the first doc fsck’ed up – not just made in an incorrect diagnosis but was negligent in his diagnoses – then that’d be malpractice. If the damages are small enough you could possibly recover in small claims court. That way’d you’d avoid attorneys and do the entire country a favor by not feeding one $100,000 over some $300 shoes.
Did you buy the expensive shoes from the doctor or from another party? If it’s the latter, there is no way you could ethically refuse to pay for them; it’s not the supplier’s fault.
If it’s a bill directly from the doctor, you could attempt to negotiate and see how far you get. If you simply don’t pay them, well, it’s not like he’s going to reposess the diagnosis or treatment, but if you get turned over to a credit agency bad things will happen.
As an healthcare administrator, this is my advice.
Write a letter to the doctor expressing your concern, he/she may be able to explain the situation better to you OR discount your bill. As mentioned before, if you have received the orthodics from another vendor, then you have the obligation to pay for them as it is certainly not their fault.
In regards to malpractice claims; number one, it is ridiculous to even consider suing because the patient did not have a positive outcome with an acceptable standard treatment and no permanent impairment. Number two which is the biggy, people who jump on the malpractice bandwagon whenever they aren’t happy with an outcome or opinion are the reason good physicians are leaving the field and medical care is so expensive. (I know you didn’t mention medmal but it came up)
Stepping down from my soapbox.
Actually, it seems to be pretty common nowdays for auto technicians to replace one part or circuit board after another, until they fix the problem.
It sometimes seems to me that I’ve paid for replacing several good parts, that probably didn’t need replacing.
But I’ve never had any luck in getting any money back for this. Sometimes they’ve said that they could put the old one back, but they would have to charge for the labor to do that, which is usually as much as the part. And that they can’t give me full credit for the new part that they remove, because it’s now “used”.
I’m the one that brought up malpractice, and if you’d carefully re-read what I wrote, you’d see that it’s only malpractice when it’s malpractice. The problem with disatisfied clients and greedy lawyers isn’t that they sue for malpractice; the problem is that they sue because they’re unhappy and stupid juries of stupid people don’t understand what malpractice is. Just because you sue for malpractice doesn’t mean there’s malpractice there. I also was careful to point out what constitutes malpractice, and it’s not just being unhappy with a treatment. All the same, just because someone is unhurt doesn’t indicate that malpractice didn’t occur. I’m in favor of massive tort reform because there are a lot of abuses and good doctors are leaving the field. But in this case we’re talking about $300, and we don’t know if this was malpractice or not, because we don’t know if the doctor was negligent or not. So to requote myself (emphasis added and obviously it’s mine):
There are different types of orthotics (i.e. accommodative, functional, rigid, soft etc.) that are prescribed for a variety of foot/leg/spine pathologies. Biomechanical orthotics are typically prescribed to limit excessive pronation (an etiological factor for a variety of ailments). If the orthotics were properly fitted to your wife’s feet, there are very few instances where the orthotic would aggravate an existing problem – unless they are in need of adjustment (many times orthotics need to be adjusted before they are comfortable and/ or successful in ameliorating symptoms). Without knowing your wife’s diagnosis, I can’t tell whether an orthotic (of any type) is indicated. Often, orthotics (particularly the accommodative type) are not used as a first line treatment, but only as an ancillary modality in a larger treatment plan.
If I were you, I would ask the second doctor (the one who diagnosed properly), whether orthotics, of the type your wife received, are indicated for her condition. If he says “yes”, I would go back to the first doctor and ask if he will adjust the orthotics until they are comfortable. If the second doctor says that orthotics are not indicated, I would ask the first doctor if he would work with you to find a satisfactory solution. I don’t think a successful malpractice suit is even a remote possibility, and most likely not even justified. Most doctors will work with you if you ask them to.
The service was provided, but the professional injured his client financially to the tune of $150 due to the professional’s mistake.
If I fscked my client’s computing systems up and inflicted $150 worth of damage in the process, I’d gladly compensate them for the damages I inflicted. If I could do that by waiving my labor fees, all the better.
