An ophthalmologist from a recent case submitted a bill for a deposition.
The case centered around a patient who was admitted after an eye surgery, was given Dilaudid, and not put on her home CPAP.
She was found apneic and ultimately died.
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The plaintiff hired an ophthalmologist to criticize the defendant’s post-operative care.
The defendant’s attorney deposed her, and she charged $700/hr for her time.
This included time to travel to her office prior to the deposition.
The bill (from the plaintiff’s expert to the defendant’s attorney) is shown here:
The defense felt that paying $700/hr for travel time was exorbitant.
They requested that the judge only require them to pay her travel time at $100/hr.
To support this request, they point out that the expert was retired, and therefore driving to her office did not deprive her of any clinical income.
The judge agreed that $700/hr was excessive.
The expert witness was paid $2650 for the deposition, not $3500 that was billed.
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MedMalReviewer Analysis:
$700/hr is not an unreasonable fee for expert witnesses who are specialists or have very niche expertise. Almost all doctors should be charging $500/hr minimum, no matter the specialty or expertise.
Understand that just because you charge a certain amount to the attorney who hires you, does not mean you will necessarily be paid that amount by the opposing counsel.
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